


An Imperfect Fit

by PenelopeMoss



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Hogwarts Sixth Year
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:21:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 18
Words: 46,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24713776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenelopeMoss/pseuds/PenelopeMoss
Summary: A Drinny story set during HBP. Ginny senses Draco Malfoy is up to something when she catches him in the corridors looking like he's been crying. She decides to follow him, and finds out that he is hiding the Dark Mark. Only now, she doesn't know if she can tell anyone his secret. I've used the archive warning "underage" since they are in 5th and 6th year, and there's a bit of explicit stuff down the road. Enjoy!
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 44
Kudos: 88





	1. Chapter 1: Hallway Run-Ins

**Chapter 1: Hallway Run-ins**

_Ginny_

Ginny hurries down the corridor, already late for Transfiguration. This stretch of hallway feels unnaturally still after the disjointed clamour of voices in the Great Hall. Lunch has only just ended, yet it feels like everybody is already in their places: in the classrooms, or outside in the early-spring sunshine, or in their common rooms. Or maybe snogging in dark crannies behind the coats of armour. She thinks briefly of Dean, the last boy she’d snogged, but her mind doesn’t linger.

She hears shuffling of footsteps and erratic breathing, and before Ginny can lift her eyes, someone bumps into her.

Malfoy. He grunts in surprise and drops his books as Ginny regains her balance.

“Watch it, will you?” he snaps, his voice hoarse, and bends low to gather his things.

“ _You_ ran into _me_ , you git.”

He looks odd. She watches him jerk his books back into his arms, and his blond hair is falling all over his face instead of slicked back as usual. His face is splotchy, red around the eyes. He looks, Ginny realizes with a shock, like he’s been crying.

He’s also alone, and Ginny never sees him alone like this. “What are you doing?” she asks, suspicious now.

“Get out of my way, Weasley.” He shoves past her and hurries down the corridor in the opposite direction.

He is never alone, Ginny thinks again. Whenever she sees Malfoy, he is with his cronies, or with a band of Slytherins, or with his Quidditch mates. She wonders if she ought to follow him, but he is already far down the long corridor, turning a corner.

A few nights ago in the common room, sitting around the low-burning fire, Harry, Ron and Hermione were mulling over the necklace that attacked Katie Bell. Harry kept insisting that Malfoy was behind it. Harry seems obsessed with Malfoy this year, convinced he is up to something.

Ginny didn’t believe it then. Whatever Malfoy is up to, it’s never anything that matters. Bullying first-years, abusing his prefect status, and sneering all over the Gryffindors is basically what Malfoy is up to. And also saying, “ _My father_ this, and _My father_ that.”

Except now, of course, Lucius Malfoy is in Azkaban and Malfoy doesn’t bring him up so much anymore.

Ginny fiddles with the hilt of her wand, undecided. Should she follow him? His eyes were red, and he looked anxious … She just knows he’d been crying. Maybe Harry is right to be suspicious. She is not exactly part of the trio detective squad, but she _is_ part of Dumbledore’s Army, and she is already so late for Transfiguration that she may as well miss it altogether. Her friends will worry, but she’ll make something up when she sees them later in the Gryffindor common room. Maybe she’ll even have news for Harry by then.

Ginny hurries down the corridor after Malfoy. She sprints forward, and when she catches sight of his blond head in the distance, she slows down and proceeds more cautiously. They pass a group of Ravenclaws and then turn a corner to head down the main staircase. He’s probably going back to his common room, which Ginny knows is in the dungeons somewhere. She follows him down another, smaller set of stairs, and it feels colder down here and more deserted. The corridor narrows and begins to branch off. Malfoy takes a sharp left. She keeps her distance behind him, hiding behind corners and casting a muffling spell to obscure her steps, but Malfoy is not looking around.

He seems all in his head, walking forward with his schoolbooks crushed against his chest.

Lamps have been lit all along the corridor even though it is daytime, and they cast rippling shadows along the stone walls. Ginny thinks that he’s bound to go into his common room at any second. She won’t be able to follow him there, of course. So she won’t have found out anything after all.

Malfoy slows down. Ginny takes a few cautious steps forward, thinking they’ve reached the entrance, but suddenly he whirls to face her directly. His eyes are fiercely narrowed, but his pale face is still splotchy-looking.

“You’re following me!” he says angrily. “I saw you, Weasley. I saw your shadow behind me. What do you think you’re doing?” He’s reaching for his wand.

Ginny makes a rash decision. She draws her own wand and shouts _“Expelliarmus!”_

Malfoy’s wand flies out of his grasp. Ginny advances on him. “I wasn’t following you, Malfoy. I was just going this way. Don’t be paranoid.”

He looks livid at having lost his wand, which is lying on the floor below a painting of a dour-looking witch with large spectacles. He’s breathing hard and the colour is rising in his cheeks.

“You’re lying, obviously. Did Potter send you?” Malfoy’s grey eyes are wide and shot with red. “You don’t have any business here. You don’t have any classes in the dungeons, Weasley, except Potions, and we’re nowhere near the Potions classroom.” He advances on her suddenly, and he is surprisingly tall, and uncomfortably close. He steps right up to her face and grips her wrist at the wand-arm. His grip is strong, his breath coming fast. “You shouldn’t have disarmed me, Weasley,” he hisses.

Ginny is momentarily shaken, but she recovers. Living with six older brothers, she’s used to boys using height and bravado to make up for a general lack of skill. She barrels into Malfoy with her left shoulder, loosening his grip on her arm, and cries _“Flipendo!”_

He flies backwards and lands on his arse. He scampers to his feet while Ginny raises her wand again, a broad smile on her face.

“Dueling in the hallways!” Filch has materialized from nowhere. “Well, well…Weasley and Malfoy, and you a prefect at that.” Filch leers at Malfoy and draws out his words like he’s savouring the sweet taste of justice. “A pair of delinquents, hmm Mrs. Norris?” The scraggly cat is picking her way between his legs. Filch turns to them. “What do you think you’re doing running about the hallways, causing mayhem. Casting dangerous spells.”

“They’re not dangerous,” Ginny begins to protest, but Filch scowls at her.

“What is going on here?” Snape’s voice carries down the corridor. He swoops in like a greasy, oversized bat, and he sounds pleasantly surprised. Ginny looks up at the Potions Master. He has a nasty smirk on his sallow face. Funny how much they all love catching Gryffindors in some wrongdoing. Snape is practically giddy.

Then, he notices Malfoy bending down to retrieve his wand, and a flicker of concern darts across his features.

* * *

Ginny has detention. So does Malfoy. Tomorrow night. Snape would have let Malfoy off the hook if it weren’t for Filch, who insisted on placing the blame for misdemeanors on both of them. Filch would never let a detention slip by. He gets off on each one, as if frustrating the student body is his only and greatest pleasure. The git.

Ginny charges back to the Gryffindor Common Room. She stomps on each one of the steps leading up to the tower. She’s fuming by the time the portrait of the fat lady swings open.

Dean is sitting on the saggy couch in front of the fireplace. She looks at the back of his head, and takes a deep breath. They are broken up, aren’t they? Are they? They had a row, in any case, and Ginny isn’t really interested in mending their relationship.

She hurries past him, up to the girl’s dormitory, before he can start a conversation. She feels all worked up. It’s the middle of the day and the dorms are empty. She should be in Transfiguration. What was she thinking?

Ginny paces around the small room twice, then collapses onto her bed. She thinks of Harry. He’s the reason she followed Malfoy in the first place – Harry was so sure that he was up to something.

She thought maybe she’d catch Malfoy in some illicit act. But that was stupid. Whatever he’d been doing, it was all finished by the time he ran into her. At least he has detention as well, and if nothing else, she’s made Malfoy’s life a bit more unpleasant. Serves him right for being an evil prat.

Ginny closes her eyes. She has Quidditch practice in an hour. It’ll be nice to fly around the pitch, to sweat out some of her frustration, to throw some Quaffles hard against the icy wind.

Harry’s face swims into her mind. Harry the captain, the Boy Who Lived. Harry and his bright green eyes, and his mess of black hair, and his crooked grin. Harry used to be in her head _always_.

In her second year, Harry Potter consumed Ginny, burned through all of her thoughts. Until her diary began to speak to her. That was a bad year, obviously. She cares about Harry now, as a good friend, as an ally, but the intensity she felt for him has died down, burnt itself out after the debacle with Tom Riddle’s diary.

But this year something has changed. Harry is noticing her. All of a sudden, now that she’s moved on, Harry is looking at _her_. She sees the way he stares at her in the hallways, in the common room. At Slughorn’s little gatherings. He’s nervous, and she feels his nervousness, and she feels his gaze flitting away when she turns to catch his eye.

The first time she ever saw him, six years ago on platform 9 ¾, he was so ruffled and funny-looking. He had lopsided glasses, and his black hair was sticking out in all directions. He was famous, but he didn’t even know it, didn’t understand anything about the Wizarding world. He was so handsome, too. Funny-looking, but handsome. How was that possible? Ginny can still see the eleven-year-old Harry in her mind.

But it’s been so many years, and so much has happened since then. That initial childish obsession has been diluted and strained, and it’s all but gone.

Lying on the bed with the wind rattling the shutters, Ginny slips a little towards sleep. She thinks unexpectedly of Malfoy’s cool grip on her wrist. Malfoy smelled like sweat and leather and expensive cologne.

Ginny’s never been so close to him, to somebody like him. The Weasleys didn’t run in the same circles as the wealthy Wizarding families. Malfoy is richer than half the student body combined, and he knows it. He’s an arrogant wanker, always perfectly put together, always sneering down on people like her. Today, though, his green Slytherin tie was askew, and he was wearing a crumpled button-down shirt beneath his Hogwarts’ robes. Why had he been crying? What did he care about so much that he would cry?

Probably himself.


	2. Chapter 2: Detention in the Dungeons

**Chapter 2: Detention in the Dungeons**

_Draco_

Why was that Weasley girl following him?

Draco frets with the silver clasps on his cloak, and pulls it tighter around his shoulders. Potter must suspect something. Draco scowls. Perfect Potter, always saving the day.

Not this time.

He got him good on the train, bloodied his nose. Too bad somebody found him sooner rather than later, otherwise he would have gone all the way back to King’s Cross that night. Anyway, Draco has bigger things to think about now, and even if Potter does suspect something, he hasn’t got any proof. There’s nothing to link Draco to the incident with Katie Bell.

He’s standing on the third-floor balcony in the fading twilight, his breath steaming in the darkness. The Slytherin common room had been stuffy and crowded. He’d needed some air. These days, it’s getting harder to listen to his housemates banter about homework and teacher favoritism, speculate about Quidditch or who’s shagged whom in the prefect bathroom. All these things that have made up the last six years of his student life have become laughably inconsequential.

He looks down onto the grounds below. The last of the snow is melting into murky puddles, and there is a heavy, cold mist hanging over the castle. There is no moon tonight; the sky is obscured by dark grey clouds. His sleeve is rolled up, and Draco lights the tip of his wand to see the Dark Mark on his pale forearm. He can feel it sometimes. Like it’s alive, separate from his body. The serpent and skull shine against his white skin.

Draco pulls down his sleeve and buttons the cuff. He’s shivering. He turns around and walks back into the warm glow of the castle.

He has detention in the dungeons, but he makes a detour to the seventh floor. There are students lingering along the hallway, so he doesn’t stop. Instead, he walks by the entrance to the Room of Requirement, his pulse quickening. It’s a bare wall, the weathered stone no different from its surroundings, yet it may as well glow like a beacon as he walks past. The Vanishing Cabinet within is still broken. He needs to fix it. He’s running out of time.

His heart is beating too fast, and he takes a deep breath to calm down, clenching and unclenching his fists. Draco looks right and left, then he enters the room. He doesn’t have time to actually work on it tonight, but he’d been planning on it. Now it was another night lost. Instead, he looks at the cabinet, runs his fingers over the ornate doors. He can feel the pulse of magic within, but it’s chaotic, like static electricity against his fingertips.

With a frown, he leaves the room a moment after he entered. There’s no time now. He’s already running late. He pushes the cabinet out of his mind and continues down to the dungeons for detention with Filch.

Snape offered to take over Draco’s detention, but he sidestepped the Potion Master’s attempts. He doesn’t want to spend the evening dodging questions. Snape is dying to know his plan, probably to take the credit for himself. Draco won’t allow it. This is _his_ work, his idea. Nobody can figure out how to get the best of Dumbledore, how to get past Hogwarts’ defensive spells, but he’s figured it out.

Draco will fulfill the Dark Lord’s wishes. The Dark Lord _chose_ him, honoured him -- whatever they all think. He knows the others say he’s too young, too weak, but he’ll show them all, and he’ll bring the Malfoy name back into a place of honour. _He_ will do it, not Snape.

The Weasley girl is already there at the bottom of the staircase, and so is Filch. “Come on,” says the squib when he catches sight of Draco. “Come on, follow me.”

They’re in the dungeons near the Slytherin common room where Filch accosted them yesterday, where Weasley caught him unaware and disarmed him. She started this whole detention mess. As if he’s got nothing better to do than clear the dungeons of dugbogs.

Draco’s brows knit in frustration. Why was she following him? He needs to find out what Potter knows.

They trail Filch deeper into the dungeons, into the labyrinths where students rarely go. There are a few unused rooms here, some dusty portraits on the walls, and Merlin knows what else breathing in the darkness. Maybe this is where the house elves live, or where all their laundry goes. Hogwarts is huge, and it seems to continue downwards just as much as it towers upwards.

Draco knows that somewhere down here there’s a tunnel out of the castle leading out to the lake where the merpeople live. Sometimes the lake swells and floods, and the dungeons get humid, and the air in the Slytherin common room gets muggy -- usually in the springtime during heavy rains. He’s heard that if you follow the branching corridors deep enough, you’ll find an underground entrance beneath the lake.

Nobody comes down here, though, so far beneath the school, except for couples looking for some privacy. It’s dank and cold down here, and Draco wraps his cloak around him to keep warm. Weasley does the same. Her hair shines in the torchlight. She’s walking ahead of him, behind Filch. Enchanted torches light their way, but the lamps get fewer and farther between as they continue downwards, until the sound of rushing water and the a terrible wafting smell of old fish overwhelms them.

“Ugh!” Draco holds his nose. “What’s that smell? It’s disgusting.”

Weasley doesn’t say anything, but wrinkles her nose.

Filch stops in a poorly-lit corridor reeking of fish. Along the stone walls, Draco can see the dead dugbogs all piled up against the walls where flood waters brought them the previous spring, then abandoned them as the water receded.

“You two’ll clean these up. Zap them gone,” Filch says. “These corridors will be flooding again in a few weeks, and I want these old rotting things cleared away before then. Once it’s all done, I’ll come down to check your work. Should take you a few hours.” His face is streaked grey and orange in the dark, and he is giddy with the prospect of giving them this useless, tedious task.

“What’s the point, though, of cleaning up dead dugbogs?” asks Weasley before Draco can do it. “Nobody goes down here anyway.”

“Don’t you go questioning me, girl. I have my reasons,” says Filch in a nasty voice. “You’ll clean them good and well. I’ll see to you in a few hours, and if you’ve done your job, you can go to sleep.” Filch grins, “And if you’ve not, you’ll just have to sleep down here with the dugbogs.” With that, he turns around and shuffles back the way he came, and his footsteps soon fade into the shadows.

The stench of old fish is revolting.

Draco is still holding nose. “This is absurd,” he says.

The Weasley girl frowns. She has freckles all along the bridge of her nose, on her cheeks, even on her forehead. Draco has never seen anyone with so many freckles.

Her eyes narrow as she surveys the dugbogs. “We’ll need a spell to get rid of them,” she mutters to herself.

Draco doesn’t say anything, studying her with a frown. He saw her yesterday at Quidditch practice. He was looking down on the Quidditch pitch from one of the terraces, thinking about the cabinet, but also needing a distraction. He watched Potter and the Gryffindor team doing their drills. Her brother made an absolute arse of himself, but she wasn’t bad. What was her name? Ginny?

“Malfoy,” she says again. “Are you deaf? I said we need a spell to get rid of all these dugbogs. We need to hurry up before I hurl.”

“Don’t order me around,” Draco sneers. “Do it yourself.” He pauses for a second before continuing: “Tell me, Weasley, do you like being a blood traitor?” He decides to rile her up. It’s her fault they’re down here, and the Weasleys all flare up so easily. He wonders if her whole face will flush bright red just like the rest of her kin. “You know Weasley, your kind will be imprisoned soon enough, when the Dark Lord gains back his full power.”

But she barely reacts. “Just shut up,” she says quietly, not taking the bait. She holds up her wand, thinking.

He pulls out his own wand where she can see it. “I won’t be caught off-guard again. Don’t try anything.”

She ignores him. _“Expulso!”_ she yells, and a dugbog explodes into a splatter on the stone floor.

Draco retches. The smell is awful. “Ugh…Weasley. I can’t breathe.”

“Do you know a better spell, Malfoy? Because I don’t plan on spending my night down here.”

Draco wracks his brain. He doesn’t know a better spell. _“Expulso!”_ he shouts, and another dugbog explodes. The smell is unbearable. Draco raises his wand again. _“Seplasium!”_ he shouts, and a mild flowery scent fills the corridor; the stench still hovers beneath the perfume, but he’s taken the edge off.

Weasley throws him an approving look. “I’ll burst them, you wash them away,” she suggests.

“I don’t take orders from peasants,” he smirks.

Weasley glares at him. “Oh, will you shut it already! I’m not doing this alone, Malfoy, and I don’t want to spend more time down here with you than absolutely necessary.”

“Fine,” says Draco. “We’ll do it your way. You’re obviously experienced in cleaning up disgusting messes, what with all the Weasleys living in squalor, so I will defer to your judgment.” He smirks again, and before she can retort, sprays the slimy mess with a stream of water from his wand.

They make their way through the dead creatures rotting alongside the dungeon walls. The trail of them seems never-ending.

Draco stifles a yawn. The lateness of the hour is pressing in on him. He didn’t sleep well last night. Hell, he can’t remember the last time he slept well. He’s always trying to sneak away to fix those damn cabinets.

He looks up to see that Weasley has walked ahead of him down the narrow corridor. He decides to find out exactly what she knows about him, if anything. “Why were you following me?” he calls after her. His voice sounds too-loud in the darkness after the long silence. He hadn’t planned to interrogate her like this, but what better time to get information than here in the dungeons with nobody to listen in, nobody to protect her.

“I wasn’t following you,” she shouts back, annoyed, but she stops walking and waits for him to catch up.

“Look Weasley, we both know you’re lying. I spotted you right away. You followed me down three floors. I even heard you cast a _Muffiato_ spell. So don’t play games.” He stares her down, his lip curled, his expression as menacing as possible. “Just tell me what you were doing, all right Weasley?”

She looks at him, thinking.

“Did Potter send you?” he presses. “Because he’s got no business, and I will tell …” Draco’s voice falters. Normally, he would say _I will tell my father about this_ or _I will tell the Headmaster_ , but both options cause something like panic to rise in his chest.

Ginny frowns at him. “Were you actually crying?”

Draco jerks back and scoffs. He can feel the heat rising in his cheeks, and he hopes she doesn’t notice. “Is that what you think?” he exhales. He hates the way she asked, not like she was mocking him, but with a hint of pity in her voice. “I wasn’t…fucking _crying_ Weasley.” He tries to laugh, to shrug her off.

She stares right back at him, refusing to break eye contact. Her red hair is fizzing in the damp air, and her eyes are wide-open brown, full of curiosity. “I know you’re up to something,” she insists. “I’ll find out. Harry’ll find out. It’s only a matter of time, Malfoy.”

“There’s nothing to find out.” He pushes past her into the corridor. The ceiling is lower here, and the torches along the walls are spread farther apart so that he can barely see into the darkness ahead. Draco shoots one exploding spell after another. It feels good – to hear the fishy beasts incinerate. He hurries forward, taking long strides.

But she’s right behind him. He can hear her footsteps an inch away.

“What were you doing yesterday when you ran into me?” she demands. “I know you were up to something.”

“I’m not up to anything.” He insists. “Is that why we’re here? Is that why we have detention?” He leans in, bringing his face close to hers again. “I’m not up to anything, Weasley, but the Dark Lord _is_ rising. He’s getting more powerful every day. Maybe that’s what you should be worried about. You may not be a Mudblood, Weasley, but you’re even worse. You’re a disgrace to magic. You know that, don’t you?”

He’s finally gotten to her. He can tell by the way her whole body tenses up, her breath quickening in anger. Her face might be bright Weasley red, but it’s gotten too dark to see properly. She is scowling though, and she looks like she might hex him, so he grabs her wrist again. That seemed to throw her off yesterday.

She doesn’t shake him off, but stares resolutely into his eyes. “Maybe you won’t admit it, but _I_ know you’re up to something Malfoy, and I’m not too worried. You’re not smart enough to accomplish anything worth worrying over. You can’t even throw a proper hex.”

The blood rushes back to his face. Draco grips his wand, but she’s already holding her own wand against his chest.

He turns around instead and storms down the corridor.

The stupid bint. She should keep her filthy Muggle-loving mouth shut.

But he can’t help the spiral of self-doubt from rising like bile, choking him with panic. _What if she’s right, though? What if you’re just not good enough? You can’t fix the cabinets. It won’t work. It’s not working. You’ll be killed._

“Malfoy, wait! Stop!”

He doesn’t listen, pounding down the corridor, forgetting the dugbogs altogether, needing to get away.

Weasley’s voice echoes behind him, “Malfoy, you’ve got to stop spraying the water. It’s too much,” she calls, her splashing footsteps coming closer.

He slows down, catching his breath. Draco realizes that his shoes are wet, and the water is ankle-deep and rising. “It’s not me,” he says. “I stopped washing away the dugbogs ages ago. It must be coming from the lake.” The fishy, perfumed odour has been diluted with the cold smell of lake water. “We must have gone too far down.”

Her sloshing footsteps are nearby. “We need to go back,” she says, approaching him.

He realizes that he can hear Weasley, but he can barely make out her silhouette beside him. The torches that lined the walls ended several feet ago.

_“Lumos,”_ he says. He sees her face close to his, bluey-orange in the wand-light.

“Are you mad?” she shouts above the rush of water. The noisy, shallow current is echoing off the stone walls. “You almost broke into a run back there. I barely caught up with you.”

“I wasn’t crying,” he says, needing suddenly to explain. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but I was tired and in a hurry, and that’s all. Do you understand?”

Weasley stares at him in disbelief. “What’s going on, Malfoy?” Her voice is strange. It’s grown somehow softer.

And she is very pretty.

The thought slips in quietly through a barrier in his brain, but now that it’s through, it unfurls inside his head and he cannot quite push it back out.

She’s been dating Dean Thomas, but everyone knows she’ll end up with Potter eventually. She’s his best friend’s sister, and she’s a shameless blood traitor. They’re perfect for each other. They’re both eager to bow-down to the stupidest Muggles and lowliest creatures at the expense of the Wizarding world.

But Draco can’t deny she’s pretty. When she walks down the hallways, you’d have to be blind not to notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Reviews greatly appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3: Dark and Light

_Ginny_

Earlier that evening, when Malfoy came down to the dungeons, he’d looked more like his usual self. His pointed face was full of smug malice, and his eyes were dry.

But he’s losing it now.

Her questions are unsettling him, she can tell. He’s running into the lake, for Merlin’s sake! Her instincts yesterday were spot on: there’s something big going on with Malfoy. She can barely see his face in the faint wand-light, but she can feel the turmoil and panic emanating from his body.

There’s a sudden surge of water, and they both lose their footing. Ginny gasps with the shock of the snow-melt. She reaches in the darkness and grabs hold of his arm. He hauls her up quickly.

“We’ve gone the wrong way,” Draco stutters, teeth clanking. “Gotta turn around.”

Wands alight, they fight the current back the way they came. They are both sopping wet, their cloaks heavy, sodden wool dragging them down.

But in the darkness, the way back isn’t clear. The fresh surge in the current has brought the water far past their ankles.

“I think we’re lost,” she stammers. “We didn’t come this way. There must have been another turn-off somewhere.” When he doesn’t answer, she pushes him. “Come on, Malfoy. Your common room is in the dungeons. Shouldn’t you know where you are?” 

“I’ve never been down here in my life, Weasley. Why would I know where we are?” He’s sneering at her again, but he’s too cold to inject his usual spite into it. Instead, his voice is full of anxiety.

They hold their wands high for the small light they provide, and hold on to each other as they wade through the black water.

They must be climbing because the water begins to recede, the current flowing in the opposite direction. Ginny takes a step, and her sopping shoes hit dry ground. Malfoy releases his hold on her cloak.

Ginny casts a quick drying spell and feels the heat coming off her robes, as if she’s just stood in front of a raging bonfire. “Here, Malfoy,” she says, and she casts the spell on him.

He stops shivering. His silvery-blond hair dries and falls into his eyes. He brushes it back impatiently. “We could have drowned back there. Filch should be sacked for this.” Malfoy looks genuinely shaken. “If I told my father about…” He seems to remember where his father is, and he falls into a despondent silence.

Ginny bites back a withering comment about Lucius Malfoy. There’s no use fighting now, and she has to agree with him anyway; Filch crossed a line. They may be dry, but they aren’t out of the dungeons yet. They could be trapped in this labyrinth of dark corridors for hours. “Are you sure you don’t know the way back?” she says finally.

“No more than you, Weasley. Just because I’m in Slytherin, doesn’t mean I’ve got the whole bloody dungeon memorized.” He sounds as exhausted as she feels. He leans against the wall.

On impulse, Ginny walks up to him. He’s a head taller than her. In the wandlight, his hair is pale gold, and there are shadows on his face, heavy shadows beneath his grey eyes.

She reaches out and takes him by the wrist. His skin is cool in her palm, but her own hand is sweaty. She can hear his shallow breaths, and her own quick, nervous breathing. “Harry thinks you’ve joined the Death Eaters,” she says carefully.

Malfoy’s arm jerks in her grasp, but doesn’t pull away.

“We all think he’s mad, though. You’re only sixteen, aren’t you? You’re not even of age to perform magic outside of school.” She unbuttons the cuff of his sleeve and pulls it back. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look at her. Ginny holds her wand in one hand, and runs her fingers over the Dark Mark with the other. Her heart is beating in her ears.

She can feel his other arm slipping around her waist, drawing her into him. The serpent and skull burn black against his skin. She traces them with shaking fingers. “I didn’t really believe it. How could you do this? Say something,” she whispers. “Malfoy. Say something…”

“You can’t tell anyone.” His voice sounds hoarse in her ear, his breath a warm puff against her cheek. “They’ll throw me out of Hogwarts. You know they will.”

“And why shouldn’t they? You’re a Death Eater.” Her heart beats louder at the words. _A Death Eater_. “You’re part of something evil. Why shouldn’t they throw you out?”

She drops his arm to back away, feeling nauseous, but his grip on her waist tightens to bring her closer.

“He’ll kill me. If they kick me out of Hogwarts, I’m as good as dead. Father has already lost standing with the Dark Lord because of what happened last year. At the Ministry.”

“It’s what you all deserve anyway,” Ginny says brashly, but something in his voice, his proximity, makes the words catch in her throat. She raises her head up to look at him, and his eyes are wide and frightened. “Isn’t it, Malfoy? Don’t you want us all dead and imprisoned? Isn’t that what you all are fighting for – the Death Eaters, I mean?”

“I just want…” he stammers. “I just want my father back. I want to stay alive. Things are not like I thought they would be when the Dark Lord returned.” He says this like it’s the first time he’s admitting it. “We were always waiting for this. The Dark Lord’s return was supposed to be this glorious moment. ” He’s speaking into the darkness to a spot above her head, and his voice is barely audible. “What if I can’t do it?” he whispers. “What if I don’t want to do it anymore?”

“Maybe you’re not as hateful as you’d like to be.” She leans into him slightly, and this small action seems to propel Malfoy forward and into her. He draws her against him and kisses her so lightly that their lips barely touch. Her hands flutter away from his wrist to press against his chest. She can feel his heart racing beneath his robes. She could push him away now. She _should_ push him away, but her shaking hands won’t cooperate.

Ginny opens her mouth a little and his tongue is warm on her lips, and then he is kissing her harder, kissing her like something he’s been holding back has broken loose.

Ginny closes her eyes. She feels like there is a humming cord that runs from her lips to the pit of her stomach. He draws her into his arms, and she grasps his neck, his fine hair, to pull him forward. She’s never felt this before, not like this. Not with Dean, or Michael; not this trembling deep in her gut.

Malfoy pulls back for air. He drops his chin on the top of her head, breathing heavily.

“What is this?” Ginny whispers. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know.” He doesn’t let her go. “I don’t know anything. I feel…I need to…I need to get some sleep, maybe.” He pushes her away, and he looks down at her. His eyes are full of fear. “ _Weasley.”_ He says it like it’s only now hitting him who she is, what they’ve done. “Please. Please don’t tell anyone.”

She stares into his face, into his wide, pale eyes. Is he talking about the kiss, or the Dark Mark? Probably both. “I have to. I have to tell Harry about the Dark Mark, that he was right all along.” She pauses. “At the very least, I need to know what you’re planning.”

* * *

_Draco_

_What I’m planning? I’m planning to kill Albus Dumbledore_. His face feels flushed in the darkness. Father always said he was shit at controlling his emotions. Draco runs a shaking hand through his hair. He is losing his grip.

Why did he kiss her?

How could he let her see the Mark, after so many weeks and months of carefully hiding it?

It was a moment of weakness. It was like some secret, shameful part of himself had crawled out of the dark space in his head to take control while the rest of him watched in horror, unable to stop.

Draco feels overtired. His whole body is thrumming. His lungs are constricted with anxiety and he can’t take a full breath. He pulls further away from her, and yanks down his sleeve. He does up the cuff carefully, avoiding her gaze.

“Come on,” he says gruffly. “We need to find our way back. Once we find the torches, I think I can figure out the way out of here.” He pushes ahead without looking back to see if Weasley is following.

They stumble along the dark tunnel until they reach a fork. Draco takes a left on instinct alone. They walk with their hands trailing along the stone wall, Weasley a few paces behind, Draco leading the way, taking turns as they come. They could be walking in circles for all he knows.

Eventually, she speaks up at his side. “I can’t let this go. I need to know the truth. You know what the Death Eaters are planning, don’t you? We need to tell Harry. You can help us, Draco.”

The use of his given name makes his heart beat faster, and Draco quickens his step. If she tells Potter, he’s finished. It’s all finished. “If you tell Potter, I’ll be gone. The Dark Lord doesn’t ask questions. He…he’s just merciless.”

“I can’t let you put anyone in danger. You sent the necklace to Katie Bell, didn’t you?”

Draco stops, holding on to the wall. “I didn’t mean for her to get hurt,” he says tightly. “It was meant for someone else.”

“Who was it meant for, then?” She takes his shoulders and turns him towards her.

He should shove her aside, but he hesitates. Draco doesn’t know why he’s so drawn to her. She’s just another hyped-up Gryffindor. He’s denounced her a million times over. She comes from a rubbish family with rubbish ideals, and she cares nothing for the purity of her blood. She’s pretty, sure, but there are plenty of pretty girls around.

“Let go of me, Weasley,” he says, his voice cold. “I don’t want you touching me. Forget what happened.”

“You’re too soft for all this. I can tell you that right now. You’re too soft to be a Death Eater.” Her eyes are fierce and even mocking, but there is warmth in them. “Come on, Draco. I want to help you. Let me help you.”

“Just _forget it_ , all right?” He strides past her down the stone corridor.

She follows in silence, deep in thought. No doubt she is planning how to tell the Headmaster about his Dark Mark. Draco pushes the thought from his mind.

Finally, they wind around a bend and see the enchanted torches flickering in their alcoves. A few minutes later, Draco recognizes the paintings lining the walls, and he leads them back to through the corridors to the staircase. Filch is nowhere to be found, and the dungeons are dead quiet. It’s the middle of the night.

At the foot of the staircase, Ginny looks briefly into his eyes with an uneasy frown. She seems like she wants to say something, but hasn’t decided what that should be.

What is there to say?

In the end, she just walks away, up the staircase, into the gloom.

Draco waits until she’s completely lost in shadow, and then heads slowly to the Slytherin common room.

It’s deserted. He makes his way to the boys’ dormitories and collapses onto his bed without bothering to take off his robes. He shuts his eyes and lets the darkness close blissfully in on his mind.


	4. Chapter 4: The Next Morning

The boys’ dormitory is too quiet. The usual early-morning sounds of snoring and shuffling bodies are conspicuously lacking. Draco forces his eyes open and stares up at the green canopy of his bed. It must be late. Everyone is already down at breakfast. For a moment he stretches out on the bed and yawns, and he doesn’t let the anxiety seep into his mind.

Not yet.

Eventually though, he has to acknowledge that he’s worn his school robes to bed, and the events of the previous night flood his consciousness in stark detail.

“Oh, no,” he says out loud to nobody. “Ugh…fuck me.” His whole body wants to cringe with the awfulness of it.

He’s wide awake now, so Draco gets out of bed. Ginny Weasley is going to tell everyone about the Dark Mark. Probably, she has already told Potter, and Potter has told Dumbledore, and it is only a matter of hours, or perhaps even minutes, before he is carted away to Azkaban. Father, Draco thinks, will not be pleased to see him. Not at all.

He takes a shower and puts on a fresh set of school robes, carefully slicking back his hair. When he makes his way to the common room, he feels more like himself.

Pansy is waiting for him, perched on a leather sofa. She stands up when he approaches, taking his hand, looking at him with her eyebrows knitted in worry. “You didn’t come down to breakfast,” she says. “Are you okay, Draco? You’ve been looking ill lately.”

“I’m fine, Pansy.”

“Are you sure?” she steps close to him and squeezes his hand. “I’ve brought you some breakfast. You’ve missed it, I’m afraid, but we’ve still got a few minutes to get to Charms if we hurry.”

Draco takes the two proffered scones wrapped in a cloth napkin, and brushes past her out of the common room. She follows him. “You got in so late last night,” she says. “I wanted to wait for you, Draco, but it was quite late, wasn’t it? What were you doing for Filch, anyway? He can’t keep you up all night like that, can he?”

Draco wishes heartily for Pansy to vanish, but she remains at his side as they walk through the dungeons, up the staircase, all the way to the Charms classroom. Normally he likes having her fuss over him; today, she is just in the way of his frantic thoughts. His eyes dart in all directions, expecting someone to apprehend him at any moment. Pansy continues to buzz around him like an unswattable mosquito, but nobody else pays him any notice.

He slips into Charms and sits down at his empty desk while Professor Flitwick passes out large clay bowls.

Draco has already run through all the ways in which he could escape the castle: he could sneak out to Hogsmeade and take the train home, or he could feign illness and call his mother to take him back to Malfoy Manor.

Only the Manor is currently occupied by Death Eaters, and as soon as he sets foot inside, he will be as good as dead anyway. Better take his chances with Azkaban.

Maybe he could hide out in the Forbidden Forest … and be mauled by beasts or angry centaurs.

Maybe he could leave everything behind and sneak away to Muggle London and hide among the faceless masses.

But he’d be found in the end. Wizards more skilled than he have paid the price for deserting the Dark Lord. Even if, by some miracle, he managed to stay hidden, there is Mother’s safety to think about.

Pansy is still ranting about Filch. Goyle is in the seat next to him; Crabbe failed his Charms OWL and is probably sleeping off his breakfast coma.

Draco looks tiredly at Professor Filtwick, who is holding up the clay bowls with an instructional air. The small-statured professor begins to drone on about the magical properties of these particular bowls, made from the dark red clay from the Andean tarns, and behind him Pansy continues to whisper at the back of his head.

Draco ignores them both and allows his thoughts to flit briefly to Ginny Weasley, whom he had actually _kissed_ last night. His hand goes unconsciously to his left wrist, clutching the Dark Mark beneath his sleeve. Why didn’t he pull his arm away? How could he have let her just roll up his shirtsleeve and see the Mark? In the light of day, it seems like some unlikely nightmare.

He takes a bite of Pansy’s scone, but it tastes like sand. Draco looks at Filtwick and watches his lips move as he gestures broadly, but his mind won’t hold the professor’s words.

After Charms, Pansy finally leaves him alone to go to Divination. He dodges past his classmates to find an empty corridor.

He needs some time before History of Magic to think. To figure out his next move. If he hasn’t been apprehended, it means that Weasley has kept quiet. But for how long? Surely she’s told Potter by now.

He’ll need to get Grabbe and Goyle patrolling the entrance to the Secret Room again, and he’ll need to work on fixing those cabinets. If he isn’t going to run, then he’s got to fulfill his mission, flee from Hogwarts, and return home to bask in the Dark Lord’s praises. He still has plenty of Polyjuice potion left, hidden in his trunk in the boys’ dormitories. If he could just figure out the mechanism in those cabinets…

Draco’s thoughts spiral to an abrupt end.

Ginny Weasley is waiting for him at the end of hallway. She is alone.

He thought seeing her now, in daylight, would be different, but his stomach clenches at the sight of her. “Weasley…” he exhales, and hates how breathy his voice sounds. He tries not to look at her too closely: not at her bright red hair, or the dusting of freckles along her bare arms, or her fierce dark eyes. She’s just so fucking unavoidably _intense_. “What do you want, then?”

“I need to talk to you.” She comes right up to him, and his heart is pounding in his chest and in his ears and inside his head. She is so close that he is sure she can hear it beating.

“So,” he says, trying desperately to sound annoyed. “You’ve told Potter, I presume? You’ve told him about what you saw yesterday?”

She looks nervous herself. She moves to take his hand. He yanks it back. She frowns. “I haven’t told anyone, Malfoy. Not yet, anyway.”

Draco wishes she wasn’t standing so close to him. Her face is inches away.

“Why did you kiss me, Draco?”

How can he answer that? “It doesn’t matter. We both know it was nothing.” Draco sees her hard gaze, and he thinks that probably if he kissed her again right now, it would discredit his earlier statement.

Her lips are chapped. Draco licks his own lips. He takes a step back.

“Fine. Whatever, Malfoy.” She seems impatient. “Never mind, that’s not what I came here to ask you, anyway. I came to find out what the Death Eaters are planning.”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“You’re going to have to. Tell me everything you know, or I’ll go to Dumbledore. I can’t put everyone at risk just because I feel sorry for you, Malfoy.”

Draco sneers again. “I don’t need you to protect me, Weasley.” As soon as he says it, he feels anxiety prickling at the back of his mind. He _does_ need her protection.

Ginny’s whole face flushes with anger, and she crosses her arms. “Fine. I’ve tried to help you. I’m not responsible for your mistakes.” She makes a move to shove past him, but he catches her by the shoulders.

“I want to tell you,” he says, “but I can’t.” He takes a breath. “Ginny.” He tries her name on his lips, to see how it sounds, to disassociate her from her mess of a family. “Ginny,” he says again, “it’s just not possible. I wish I could tell you everything.”

Draco almost believes his own words. If he could somehow reverse time and erase the events of the past year, he would do it.

If he could make it so the Dark Lord had never returned, and his father had never gone to Azkaban, and his only concerns were passing his NEWTs and taking the piss out of Harry Potter, then he would gladly go back to that life.

But he can’t. “I’m just trying to figure things out right now. Just give me a bit of time, okay Weasley?”

“Weasley?” she asks softly.

“Ginny,” he amends.

“Just promise me. Promise me that you’ll leave it. Whatever you’re doing, promise me that you’ll stop.”

Draco looks at her in surprise. “You mean, you won’t tell anyone? If I promise?”

“No. I won’t.”

He knows then that she doesn’t want to get him in trouble. Maybe she cares about him. She did kiss him back, after all. But surely she can’t expect him to defy the Dark Lord, to risk his own life and the lives of his family simply because she’s asked him to.

Maybe she just needs to hear him say that he’s not up to anything too bad so that her conscience can rest easy.

His hand moves from her shoulder to her back, drawing her into him. She smells like shampoo and wind. He lowers his head and kisses her slowly. It feels good, and his whole body is stirring, aware of her body pressing against his, and suddenly he can’t get enough of her. When he’s kissing her like this, his mind is a blank slate, his anxiety momentarily muffled, and there is only this rush of adrenaline coursing through him.

His hands are in her hair now, and his lips are on her neck. And he _wants_ her. He wants this so much. Any minute now, someone might walk past this stretch of hallways and see them, but he can’t make himself stop.

She’s gripping him too, crushing him against her. “Promise me,” she whispers against his lips.

“I promise,” he says. She pulls away and looks into his eyes. “I promise,” he says again, weakly. She must know that he is lying.

“Maybe we should tell Dumbledore,” she says. “Maybe he can help you. He can protect you.”

Draco takes a shaky breath and finally lets go of her. She doesn’t understand. Of course she doesn’t understand. She is on the wrong side of the war.

Dumbledore is his _enemy_. His death is the only thing that can truly protect him. Not only protect him – his death would elevate him in the Dark Lord’s eyes, would exceed all of their expectations. “Don’t tell Dumbledore,” he says. “Not yet. Give me time.”

He feels a rush of guilt, but she is already agreeing. “Fine. I won’t tell.” She frowns at him, her eyes hardening again. “For now.”

* * *

_Ginny_

Something is definitely wrong with her.

She had a nice boyfriend. Dean is a nice bloke. He’s handsome and easygoing and a gentleman. He’s been grating on her nerves lately, but nothing like Draco Malfoy. Malfoy gets on _everybody’s_ nerves.

Maybe something’s broken inside of her. Maybe when she spilled herself into Tom Riddle’s diary, something dark and hateful took up residence in her heart, and now she can’t like nice boys like Dean (like _Harry_ ). Instead she’s attracted to awful, bigoted jerks like Draco Malfoy.

She can picture him perfectly when he closes her eyes. His fine hair, his soft, pale lips, that expensive, leathery smell that clings to his robes. The thought of kissing him turns her on, makes her imagine all sorts of things that are plain _wrong_. When he pulls her into him, and his arms are firm around her, she just can’t feel enough of his body against hers.

She could lie to herself, but the fact that he’s a Malfoy, that he’s an incorrigible jerk obsessed with blood status, but can’t seem to keep his hands off her -- it’s part of the attraction. He’s got one foot in something truly evil, yet he’s incapable of taking the leap into darkness, incapable of even fully seeing the good in himself.

Ginny groans and opens her eyes.

It’s been three days since they last spoke in the hallway, since he promised to stop whatever he’s been doing. Should she believe him? Probably not. She knows she needs to tell Dumbledore. But then she thinks of Draco’s wide, grey eyes. His long eyelashes. He has the eyelashes of a girl. Ginny smiles to herself.

“What’s so funny?” Concepta asks. Ginny remembers she’s in the library, allegedly studying for her OWLs. Her friend Concepta is standing over her table with a fresh set of books. “It can’t be that copy of _Magical Theory_ you’re reading, because that’s the driest book I’ve ever read. Except for maybe _Hogwarts: A History_.”

Ginny closes the big tome in a cloud of dust. “I need a break, Concepta. I think it’s dinnertime anyway.”

In the Great Hall, she slides into a seat across from Hermione and fills her plate with mashed potatoes and sausage. She pulls the loaded plate back, but looking at all that food, can’t seem to find her appetite.

“Are you okay, Ginny?” asks Hermione.

“I’m just tired. I’m worried about OWLs. You know how it is.”

Hermione nods enthusiastically. “In my fifth year, I felt like I was going to forget something no matter how much I studied. Oh, it was so stressful. It’ll be okay, Ginny. It feels like the most important thing in the world right now, but believe me, it’s really just a set of exams.” Hermione laughs. “I mean, not _just_ exams, but you understand what I’m saying. Don’t stress yourself out like I did. Oh, hello Harry.”

Harry sits down next to Hermione and starts piling up his plate. He looks tired and distracted, but that’s the typical Harry look, especially towards the end of term. It seems like things are always coming to a point around this time of year.

Harry’s eyes flit nervously up and over Ginny. She’s noticed these looks before – he can’t seem to settle his gaze anywhere in her vicinity, as if looking at her too long will give something away.

Across the room, from the Slytherin table, she senses the same flitting gaze from Draco Malfoy. His eyes fall on her, then dart away. Both are trying not to look directly at her. Dean is the only one who has no problem looking at Ginny. He stares at her with a deep frown. Ginny never did break it off with him officially, and now it’s probably too late to have a civil conversation about it.

Ginny decides to focus on her food, and after the first few bites, she realizes she is ravenous. She pours on more gravy and grabs a biscuit from a heap. She cannot let all of this Malfoy stuff get to her. There’s Quidditch practice tomorrow, and she _does_ have OWLs to study for. And if something does happen in the next few months, she won’t be much use to Harry if she’s weak from hunger and constant worry.

“You’ve just got to stop obsessing about Malfoy!”

Ginny’s eyes shoot up, but Hermione is talking to Harry.

“Come on, Harry. You’ve already told Dumbledore everything you know, and he doesn’t seem worried.”

“I know, Hermione.”

“And you’re meant to be focusing on Slughorn, where we’ve made zero progress by the way.”

“I _know_ , Hermione. I’m trying. I can’t just force him to talk to me, can I? We’ve already been through this.”

“What exactly did you tell Dumbledore about Malfoy?” Ginny asks.

“That he’s a bloody Death Eater,” says Ron. Her brother has squeezed in between Harry and Hermione and has already shoved an entire sausage in his mouth. “Harry told him about the conversation he overheard between Malfoy and Snape, but he still trusts Snape. He won’t budge on that.”

“And if Dumbledore trusts Snape, then so should we,” says Hermione.

“Hermione’s right,” says Ron. Ginny smiles. It’s nice seeing the two of them back on good terms after the whole Lavender debacle. It’s also nice not having to watch Lavender and Ron sucking face all over the Gryffindor common room.

Ron impales another sausage on his fork and points it at Harry. “I mean, come on Harry. I can’t see Malfoy being a Death Eater. He’s just… _Malfoy_. He’s all talk.”

Harry looks annoyed. “He’s been going into the Room of Requirement more than ever. He’s definitely up to something.”

Ginny stands up abruptly. She doesn’t want to talk about Malfoy, and she doesn’t want to _not_ talk about the Dark Mark burned into his forearm. “I have to meet some friends,” she says. “See you later.”

“Oh okay. Bye, Ginny.” Hermione waves. Ron ignores her, and Harry mumbles something with his eyes cast downward.

Ginny walks out of the Great Hall. Grey eyes catch hers momentarily, and then dart away.


	5. Chapter 5: The Wrong Side

**Chapter 5: The Wrong Side**

_Ginny_

Maybe Dumbledore already knows. Maybe telling him what she saw in the dungeons would change nothing. Certainly, Snape must know about the Dark Mark if he’s truly in the inner circle, and Hermione is right in saying that Dumbledore trusts Snape. If Snape knows, then Dumbledore must know. So there is nothing to be anxious about. Whatever Draco is planning is probably too insignificant to matter.

Ginny closes her eyes. She can only justify her actions (or her _inaction_ ) for so long.

Most students are still in the Great Hall eating dinner, and the corridors are quiet. Ginny turns away from the winding staircase that leads up to the Gryffindor tower, deciding on a whim to go outside instead. The castle feels stuffy, and light from the setting sun is flowing seductively through the high windows.

It’s breezy outside. Ginny makes her way down a well-worn dirt path to the lake.

She knows she should tell Harry what she saw.

She should have already told Harry.

But there is everything else. Everything she can’t say to Harry.

Suddenly, she is thinking about kissing Draco again, and she feels the familiar dizzying rush. It’s just a crush. Some kind of ridiculous, dysfunctional crush.

Melting ice is floating on the water in patches, with the edges already thawed and marshy-looking. The ground is spongy underfoot.

Ginny hears footsteps behind her. She turns around to see a group of young Hufflepuff girls laughing together. She keeps walking, increasing her pace. It feels good to move, to breathe the cold air and just get out of her head for a moment.

She hears footsteps again. She turns around, and this time, it’s him. “What do you want?” she calls.

He jogs up to her. He glances quickly and nervously at the Hufflepuff girls, but they are engrossed in their own conversation, walking in the opposite direction.

Ginny frowns. Draco would be embarrassed to be caught running after her like this. Of course he would. Whatever kissing they did in the dark crannies of the castle, he would probably die before he’d let any one of his Slytherin friends see him touch her. A blood traitor, he called her.

“What do you want, Malfoy?” she says again.

“Where are you going?” he asks. He falls into step with her.

“Nowhere.”

“Yeah, me too.” He smiles at her sideways.

“Aren’t you worried that someone will see us?” Ginny asks.

“There’s nobody here,” says Draco. He shoves his hands in his pockets and they walk down the bending dirt path around the contour of the lake until the Hufflepuff girls are far behind them.

“And what if there was?” asks Ginny. “What if there were people around? You wouldn’t be caught dead talking to me like this, walking beside me like we’re...some kind of friends,” she finishes lamely.

“Oh, and you would be okay with that, would you?” he scoffs. “If you saw Potter coming this way, you’d probably jump into the lake, never mind the hypothermia.”

He was right. If Harry could see her now…Merlin's Beard, that would be a disaster. “So maybe that means we’re not meant to be here together. If we can’t even fess up to having a _conversation_ in front of our friends, then it must be pretty bad.”

“You’re probably right, Weasley.” Draco nudges her softly with his shoulder. “So why did you come out here? Really? You left the Great Hall in a hurry.”

“I just needed some air, I guess. It’s too stuffy in the castle.” She looks at him. He is tall and lanky, and he looks good in his green and silver robes. His pale cheeks have turned patchy red in the breeze, and his grey eyes are kind, not narrowed in anger. “Why did _you_ come out here, Malfoy? And why do you keep looking at me in the Great Hall? I can see you, you know.”

“How can I _not_ look at you?” he says, exasperated. Ginny raises an eyebrow. “No, I mean…I didn’t mean…” His cheeks flush brighter. She watches the flush creep up the back of his neck, out from the collar of shirt, and she tries to contain her smile.

He avoids her eyes and shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. “I mean, the _reason_ I’m looking at you is because I’m obviously on edge. You know what you saw in the dungeons. You hold all the cards, Weasley. Every morning I wake up, and I wonder if this will be the day I get carted off to Azkaban.”

“I told you I’d give you time,” says Ginny. “I said I wouldn’t go to Dumbledore straight away, and I haven’t. But you promised you would stop doing whatever it is Voldemort has ordered you to do.”

He winces at the name, but Ginny says it brashly. To say anything else would be to cower in the face of evil, to give in to fear. Harry taught her that. She gives him a hard, probing look. “And you haven’t stopped, have you Malfoy?”

“I have,” he insists. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I know you’re still up to something,” Ginny hisses, losing her temper. “You’re just a liar, aren’t you? Of course you are, what am I saying? You’ve got no morals. You’re a Death Eater!”

“Keep your voice down.” He looks panicked.

They walk a little way in silence.

They are almost around the bend of the large lake, heading back towards the castle. The sun is low and spread thin across the clouds, and the air is wet and cold. It smells like half-bloomed flowers and new, windblown grass.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard, Weasley, but it’s not true. Anyway, how would you know what I’m doing or not doing? It’s not like you can see me every minute of every day.”

 _No,_ thinks Ginny, _but Harry can_.

She can’t tell him that, though. Just as Ginny can’t tell Harry about Draco’s Dark Mark, she wouldn’t dare talk to Draco about the Marauder’s Map, or Harry’s meetings with Dumbledore, or anything associated with the Order. _He’s on the wrong side_ , she reminds herself. _If this were a story, he’d be one of the bad guys._ And she kissed him. And she liked it. And even now she can imagine touching him again. “Who else has seen the Mark?” Ginny asks.

He thinks for a minute before answering. “Nobody at Hogwarts.”

“Not even Pansy?”

He looks confused. “Why would Pansy have seen it?”

“She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she?”

Draco looks at her sideways. “Well, not exactly." He pauses, his smile broadening. "You’re jealous of Pansy?”

“Don’t sounds so pleased, Malfoy.”

“I am pleased.”

“I’m not jealous,” Ginny says. “I just assumed, you know, that she’s seen you without, I don’t know, without your shirt on.” Now she feels embarrassed.

Draco looks amused. “Oh, well, she has actually. I mean, so have loads of people. I live in a dormitory with a bunch of blokes, don’t I?”

“So…”

“I use a concealment charm. I also try to keep it hidden, obviously, but if I know that someone might see or if I have to get changed for Quidditch practice or something, I use the charm.” He pauses. “It’s difficult to maintain, though. It’s not like hiding a birthmark, or even a regular tattoo.” Draco looks pained. “It’s like it doesn’t _like_ being hidden; like it knows what I’m doing and it fights my magic.”

“Oh,” Ginny breathes. “That’s awful.” She can’t help herself. “How could you let him do that to you? To put that piece of himself on your _flesh_?”

He’s stopped walking and he’s looking at her like he’s also just realizing that she’s on the wrong team, that they don’t have any single shared thing between them. “It’s an honour,” he says softly, but defiantly. “Do you know how many students at Hogwarts have the Mark? Nobody else.”

“Well, of course not.”

“I was chosen. He chose me because I am worthy.”

“Worthy of what? Of destroying people’s lives? Of bringing back darkness and despair to the Wizarding world?”

“It’s not like that.” He looks annoyed. “I am a pureblood wizard. I come from a long line of powerful witches and wizards, of those loyal to magic. Loyal to _this_ world. The Muggles are weak and stupid, and given half a chance, they would destroy us. You know they would. It’s why we’ve got the Statute of Secrecy, isn’t it? Why should we be the ones to hide, to grovel at the feet of those who are weaker. We are powerful enough to destroy them, yet we’ve got to slink around as if we’ve got something to be ashamed of.”

Spoken like a true Death Eater,” says Ginny. “What if I were a Muggle, or Muggle-born? Would you truss me up like an animal, like your lot did at the Triwizard Tournament?”

Draco shrugs, and his face is dark. “You’re not a Mudblood,” he says, like it's a moot point. 

“Don’t you dare use that word.” It’s suddenly dusk and the air around them is all shades of blue and grey. Ginny has drawn her wand. His hand is inside his robes, but he’s too slow once again. “You’re disgusting, Malfoy. I don’t know what came over me before. Temporary insanity, maybe.”

“You’re being stupid,” he hisses. There’s a desperation to his tone. “You’re just brainwashed by Potter and Dumbledore and your Muggle-loving father.”

Ginny feels something hot and raw bubbling inside her. What is she doing out here, in the dark, with this awful person? He may not be sneering and sarcastic, but he is still every bit as terrible as he’s always been.

"Everyone knows Arthur Weasley is mad about Muggles,” Draco says callously. “He’s always fiddling with their rubbish. He’s a laughing stock at the ministry.”

Ginny feels angry enough to cry, or to scream into the darkness. “Get away from me, Malfoy. Don’t come near me again.” She sucks in a shaky breath, jabbing her wand at his chest. “If you speak to me again, I will hex you. I promise you that.”

She can barely see his face gleaming in the moonlight. His expression is unreadable. Ginny shoves him away with her wand arm, and he takes a staggering step backwards. Then, she turns around and runs the rest of the way down the dirt path, all the way back to the castle doors. She doesn’t look back, and she doesn’t hear his footsteps. It’s after curfew, and she’s supposed to be back in the common room.

* * *

_Draco_

Pansy breaks away from her conversation with Millicent Bulstrode and hurries towards Draco as soon as he walks into the Slytherin common room. 

“Oh, there you are, Draco. I was just working on our DADA essay with Millicent. Have you done it yet? Can you help us? You know so much about the Dark Arts.” She beams at him. When he doesn’t immediately respond, she keeps talking. “I was wondering where you’d gotten to after dinner. Crabbe nicked a pet toad from one of the second years and tossed it back and forth with Goyle and Nott. It was a riot until that half-breed centaur came down from the Astronomy Tower and took points from Slytherin. My mum says Dumbledore’s gone senile, letting _beasts_ teach classes inside the castle, putting everyone’s safety at risk…” Her voice tapers off. “You look like you’ve been outside. Your hair is all blown about.” She smiles at him, nervously this time. She brushes her own short black hair behind one ear.

“Yeah, I was outside.” Draco says. He walks past Pansy and shoos a couple of first years off his favourite armchair. He sits down and crosses his arms, staring straight ahead, unsure if the unhappy feeling pressing on his chest is rooted in anger or anxiety.

His heart is still pounding from the argument. He wants to call Weasley back, to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she sees through her Potter-induced delusions and actually hears him out.

“It must be pitch black outside. You were out there after hours? You’re not afraid of getting caught?” Pansy perches on the armrest next to him, still clutching her Potions scroll. She sounds impressed.

Traditionally, this is the part in the conversation where Draco says he isn’t afraid of getting caught, that he isn’t afraid of breaking Dumbledore’s rules because his father can get him out of any jam. This year, however, with Father locked away in Azkaban, Draco has had to allude to forces even greater than Lucius Malfoy, and to concerns more weighty than the minutia of school life.

“I’ve got bigger things to care about than some stupid curfew,” he tells Pansy. “You know, none of this matters in the real world – house points and curfews and all that.” Pansy looks impressed, and Draco feels a tiny bit better. “Now that the Dark Lord has returned, it is only a matter of time before those of us who remained loyal are rewarded, and those who defied him are punished.”

Pansy looks even more impressed, but Draco has an unpleasant taste in his mouth. He sounds just like Father. How many times has Lucius Malfoy uttered those exact words? Now he is in Azkaban, and Draco is tasked with an impossible mission with his life on the line. That hardly seems like a reward.

Pansy reaches up to move his hair back into place. Her fingers brush his temple and move down to stroke his cheek. “Don’t worry, Draco,” she says softly, correctly interpreting the troubled look in his eyes. “Your father will be out of Azkaban soon enough. I bet it’s only a matter of time before the Dark Lord has control of Azkaban and the Ministry, and soon all of the stupid Mudbloods will be kicked out of Hogwarts.”

“Show me your essay,” he tells her, reaching up to take her hand. “We can work on it together.” In truth, he hasn’t even started his own essay. Snape would probably give him some leeway, but Draco doesn’t want to give the professor any excuse to take him aside and question him about the state of the Dark Lord’s assignment.

Snape was livid after Ron Weasley drank the poisoned wine that Draco had intended for Dumbledore. He doesn’t feel like confessing the extent of his ineptitude to him. The cabinet is no closer to being fixed, and the end of the school year is quickly approaching.

A new thought creeps into his mind: what would Ginny say if she knew he’d been the one that nearly killed her brother at Christmas? What if Ron Weasley had actually _died_? Draco feels a swell of guilt, and swallows it down.

It’s just weakness. He needs to steel himself.

If he wants power, if he wants greatness, then he needs to be strong enough to kill for it.

Feeling exhausted, he unrolls an empty scroll next to Pansy’s. “Let’s get started. _Defensive Spells of the Modern Wizarding Age._ ”


	6. Chapter 6: Sectumsempra

_Draco_

The following afternoon, Draco gives Crabbe a dose of Polyjuice potion and slips into the Room of Requirement.

The tall chamber is crowded with odds and ends, but Draco only has eyes for the vanishing cabinet. He has put in so many hours and so many months trying and failing to repair it. None of the standard mending charms did any good. He was beginning to despair when he came across a library book containing spells to repair magical artefacts. The book had an entire section on bewitched cabinets and wardrobes, and now Draco is making his way through the section, hoping that something will stick.

After an hour of fiddling with the complicated wandwork, he is ready to tear his own hair out in frustration. He storms out of the room to find Grabbe waiting for him, the Polyjuice potion worn off. “Come on,” he grunts.

Grabbe frowns. “How much longer is this gonna take?” he whines. “I’m sick of looking like a little girl, standing around this hallway. It’s boring.”

“I need a lookout,” says Draco. “I thought you’d be happy to serve the Dark Lord.”

“There’s hardly anyone around here anyway. And it’s been _ages_. Why aren’t you done yet?”

“I told you not to ask questions,” Draco scowls. “This is important business for the Dark Lord. Do you want to displease the Dark Lord, Grabbe?”

Grabbe quiets down, but he looks upset. Draco decides to risk showing him the Dark Mark next time if he continues being difficult. One thing he has enjoyed, in spite of everything else, is the look of shock and fear that crosses people’s faces when he shows them the Mark. For once, they take him seriously.

Draco and Grabbe make their way down the castle steps. Ahead, he catches sight of Ginny Weasley.

It’s her audacious hair that makes her impossible to miss, even when she is surrounded by people (which she constantly is).

A little ways away, on the landing below, he notices Potter and his sidekicks. Granger and Weasley are engaged in some argument, but Potter’s gaze is locked on Ginny.

He is looking at her with such naked longing that Draco wants to shout at him to stop. He takes a few steps forward, but resists the urge to charge at Potter and push him aside, thrust him to the ground, anything to smother that look before Ginny can notice. A feeling of futile hatred surges through Draco so suddenly that he’s surprised Potter can’t feel it emanating towards him.

If Potter wants her, it’s only a matter of time before they end up together.

Ginny and her friends disappear around a corner, and students surge into the hallway on their way to the Great Hall for lunch.

Draco stands rooted to the spot, his insides twisting with anger at the unfairness of it. Famous Harry Potter has gotten everything Draco’s ever wanted so effortlessly, so why not her as well.

“You go ahead,” he tells Crabbe, who has already joined the queue into the Great Hall. “I’m not hungry. I’ll eat later.” He turns and walks quickly away from the crowd, elbowing his way between groups of chattering students. He fights his way down the staircase against the flow of bodies, bursts through the main doors, and finds himself outside by the lake again, walking briskly down the same dirt path that winds around the water. What does it matter, really, if Potter and Weasley begin dating? She’s made it clear that she wants nothing to do with him.

Draco replays their argument in his mind. He has to agree with her – they are fundamentally different. She opposes everything he believes in. Or _thought_ he believed in.

His father would call him a coward, questioning his ideals for a pretty face, for a _Weasley_ of all people, but that’s not the extent of it. The doubts and the fears had begun to creep into his mind long before that night in the dungeons. 

His father has been telling stories of the Dark Lord’s reign since Draco was a child: a time when the Malfoy name had been given the reverence it deserved, when the purity of their blood stood for something. Yet now that the Dark Lord has _finally_ returned, how quickly Lucius Malfoy has fallen to disfavor, locked away in Azkaban. Meanwhile, his mother is so consumed with worry she’s practically having a nervous breakdown, and Draco has been given an impossible assignment that _nobody_ thinks he can accomplish.

He’d accused Ginny Weasley of being brainwashed by her Muggle-loving father, but couldn’t she say the same of him?

The wind whistles in his ears and Draco shivers in the cold, but he keeps walking down the path, pounding out his jumbled thoughts into the dirt.

Dumbledore may be a Mudblood-lover, he may favour Harry Potter and his cronies, but at least he is somehow predictable in his actions. If nothing else, Dumbledore is a man of his word: he does not act rashly, does not murder indiscriminatingly.

Murder.

Is that his fate? Murderer or murdered? Draco’s eyes sting in the wind. He blinks furiously. _Stop it!_ He thinks. _Don’t be stupid._ _Control yourself._

Wiping his face roughly on his sleeve, he leaves the path for a patch of trees and leans heavily against a knotty oak. He wishes she were here, so he could speak to her about all this. She is the only one he could ever voice these thoughts to. Certainly, he could never say anything to his friends or housemates, not after the way he’s been boasting about the Dark Lord’s return, dropping confident hints about his role in the inner circle. He slumps down and buries his face in his hands. How did everything go so wrong so quickly?

* * *

_Ginny_

She has never been to Dumbledore’s office. In her first year after she’d been lifted out of the Chamber of Secrets, after Tom Riddle’s memory had been vanquished from the diary, Dumbledore visited her in the hospital wing and they’d had a long talk. Apart from that night, she’s never had reason to seek out the headmaster, and doesn’t truly know how to find him. She could ask Harry of course, but Ginny isn’t going to bring this up with Harry, or anyone else. She wants to tell Dumbledore about Draco Malfoy’s Dark Mark on her own terms.

In the end, she decides to approach McGonagall after Transfiguration. After waiting for the other students to clear out, she tells her friends that she has a question about the Transfiguration OWL and makes her way to the front of the room.

“Professor,” she says tentatively.

“Yes, Miss Weasley?”

Ginny nears her desk, fiddling with the slipper she was meant to be transforming into a bird. “I need to speak with Professor Dumbledore. Could you help me arrange a meeting?”

McGonagall looks surprised and wary. “What is this about, Miss Weasley?”

“I can’t say, Professor,” Ginny says. “It’s about a fellow student.” She thinks of Draco’s face in the setting sun by the lake and tries to recall her outrage from that night. “It’s a matter of privacy, I guess. It’s important for me to speak only with the headmaster.”

“Very well, Miss Weasley, if you’re sure you can’t elaborate?” Ginny shakes her head, and McGonagall purses her lips. “The headmaster is indisposed at the moment, but you may speak with him in the evening after dinner. Come to the third floor corridor at eight o’clock this evening. I will be waiting for you in front of the gargoyle statue.”

Ginny nods her thanks and leaves the room.

The afternoon goes by excruciatingly slowly. Time stands still in Potions, then drags through Arithmancy. Ginny does not fully taste the food she picks at during dinner, and she doesn’t hear the chatter of her fellow fifth-year Gryffindors. In her head, she’s rehearsing the conversation she will have with the headmaster, and then justifying her decision to Draco. The Draco Malfoy in her head is always defensive and rude and a little pathetic, but also really good-looking in his silver-green robes, a smirk wavering on those pale lips.

Finally, it is a quarter to eight. As Ginny attempts to slip through the portrait hole, her friend Concepta thrusts out an arm to block her way.

“Where are you off to in such a rush?”

“I’m just going to the library,” Ginny invents. “There’s a book I forgot to grab earlier, and I need it for my Transfiguration essay.”

“Oh, is there now? A book?”

Ginny laughs. “Yes! Come off it Concepta, don’t be weird.”

“How cute is this book? On a scale of one to ten?”

Ginny rolls her eyes. “Don’t be stupid.”

Concepta gives her a probing look. “You’ve been really mysterious lately, Ginny. It’s not like you. I know you and Dean broke up, and, well…”

“It’s not a boy, I swear.” _Although it sort of is a boy_. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind. Come on Concepta, I need to go.” She finally makes it out of the portrait hole, and

hurries down the steps to the third floor. There is a rather hideous statue of a gargoyle at the foot of the landing. A few minutes after Ginny arrives, Dumbledore himself approaches the statue from the other end of the corridor. He walks slowly. Ginny notices the blackened hand hanging uselessly at his side. She’s seen it before in the Great Hall of course, but up close it looks even more awful.

“Chocolate frog,” he says good-naturedly, and the gargoyle steps aside to reveal a stone staircase rising into the air, leading up to the headmaster’s office. “Good evening, Miss Weasley,” he says.

“Thank you for seeing me, Professor Dumbledore,” she says breathlessly. “I need to talk to you about…”

“Let us go up to my office, shall we?” he interrupts. He sounds weary. He seems to have aged a decade since she’s last seen him up close: his face is thinner and deeply lined. He makes his way slowly up the stone steps.

In silence, Ginny follows. His office strikes her as immensely interesting, filled with all sorts of mysterious whirring objects. A stone basin stands on a pedestal near a large desk. Fawkes, Dumbledore’s beautiful red and gold phoenix, is asleep in one corner of the circular room. Portraits of past headmasters cover the walls, some watching Ginny attentively, while others are snoozing or reading, and still others are absent from their frames altogether. Dumbledore walks around to sit behind his desk, and motions Ginny to take a seat in the chair opposite. “Now, Ginny, what can I do for you this evening?”

Ginny squirms in the seat. She has come this far; there is no changing her mind now. “I’ve come to speak with you about Draco Malfoy,” she begins.

Dumbledore looks mildly surprised, but does not say anything, waiting instead for Ginny to continue.

Ginny finds that it is more difficult to say these words out loud to the real Dumbledore than to speak to an imaginary headmaster in her mind. She takes a shaky breath. “Draco Malfoy has become a Death Eater, Professor Dumbledore.”

“Yes, our friend Harry is also quite concerned about Mr. Malfoy. Do you know that he’s already spoken to me about his suspicions?”

“I know, Professor,” Ginny says quickly, “and I know that you’ve told Harry not to concern himself with Draco, but these are not just _suspicions_. I’ve seen his Dark Mark for myself. He’s told me the truth.”

“Has he now?” There is the tone of mild surprise again, and Dumbledore looks at Ginny from behind his spectacles, his blue eyes not unkind, but curious. “However did you manage to convince Mr. Malfoy to take you into his confidence? If you don’t mind me asking…”

Ginny is thrown by this question. She is prepared to tell Dumbledore the extent of what she knows about the Dark Mark, which admittedly is not much, but she was not expecting to provide the exact details of their relationship. Ginny’s face feels too hot. She knows she is blushing, and thinking about herself blushing only makes her blush more furiously.

“Umm…” she searches for a plausible story. She could say that she forced the information from Draco at wand-point, or that he accidentally left his sleeve rolled-up and she caught him unawares…but these lies sound wholly improbable under Dumbledore’s pleasant yet probing gaze. “We had detention together in the dungeons last week,” she begins. “We were cleaning up dugbogs for Mr. Filch, and Draco, um, I mean, Malfoy seemed very upset that night. We were alone, and we began…talking…and…” Ginny squirms in her seat. She takes a deep breath. “He showed me his Dark Mark, and he admitted he’s on a secret mission for Voldemort.” Her voice wavers only slightly at the name. “He wouldn’t tell me exactly what the mission is, but I know he hasn’t given it up.”

Dumbledore nods. “I see.” He pauses to think for a moment. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Ginny. I will ask you to keep this information to yourself for the time being.”

“What are you going to do?” she asks. When he doesn’t immediately answer, she leans forward in her seat. “I know it’s bad, Professor Dumbledore, but I don’t think Draco Malfoy is completely evil or anything.”

“Nobody is completely evil, dear Ginny, just as nobody is completely good. We are all of us both good and evil at different times, in different circumstances. This is what it means to be human.”

Ginny nods. “Yes, but I just mean, he’s not _all_ bad. I think he’s scared, Professor Dumbledore. He feels like he has no choice, like he’s trapped.” Is she defending him? Ginny swallows hard. “Maybe you could help him,” she says in a small voice. “I don’t want him to get hurt.”

Dumbledore nods. “Mr. Malfoy is poised to do terrible things, and if he succeeds, he must take responsibility for them. Fear is not an adequate excuse.” He pauses. “However, I believe you’re right, Ginny, in your assessment of Mr. Malfoy. I have to say, I’ve known about Draco’s predicament for some time.”

“You have, then,” sighs Ginny. “I thought you might know, but I had to tell you anyway, to be sure.”

“Thank you for coming to me. Once again, I urge you to keep this information to yourself. I have made efforts to help Mr. Malfoy as best I can, but this is a sensitive case – if I appear to know too much, Draco may find himself in even graver danger.”

“Do you know what his mission is, then?”

Dumbledore looks very tired. Ginny wonders if he is ill. “I do, Ginny. I do not think you need concern yourself with the details.” He pauses to catch his breath. “I think you’d better head back to the Gryffindor common room.”

Feeling dismissed, Ginny thanks the headmaster again, and walks back down the winding staircase to the ugly gargoyle. She thought she would feel better after speaking to Dumbledore, but she feels the same: worried and restless.

After a quick detour to the library (Concepta would want to see the book that Ginny allegedly borrowed), she hurries back up the stairs to the seventh floor. She’s out of breath by the time she climbs into the portrait hole. She takes a few steps into the common room, and stops short in surprise. “Katie!” Ginny exclaims. Katie Bell is sitting on an armchair with a group of seventh years, a thick stack of books and scrolls scattered around them. She looks just fine – smiling and chatty, her cheeks bright from the heat in the fireplace. “You’re back! It’s so good to see you back!”

“Hi Ginny! I got back this morning. I can’t believe nobody’s told you yet. Harry’s already scheduled Quidditch practice first thing tomorrow morning.”

“I’ve been a bit preoccupied, I guess.” Ginny stares at Katie. “But you’re OK?” she asks, though she can glean the answer from the other girl’s energetic demeanor.

“I’m fine now, and before you ask, I don’t know who sent me that necklace. Everyone’s been asking me, but I have no memory of it at all.” She sighs. “It’s really a bummer. I’ve missed so much school for nothing. I’ve got loads of homework of course, and I’m gutted that I missed the last Quidditch match. I heard McLaggen was a _disaster_.”

Ginny makes a gagging noise, and Katie laughs. “It’s so great to have you back, Katie. It really is.”

“I can’t wait to get back on the field tomorrow morning,” Katie says.

“Now that you’re back, and Ron’s healthy again, we’re going to be unstoppable!” Ginny feels suddenly full of energy. The thought of possibly winning the Quidditch cup fills her with excitement, with purpose. She runs up the stairs to the girls’ dormitory and scoops the pile of neglected study books into her arms. Her first OWL exam is less than a month away. It’s time to stop putting her life on hold for Draco Malfoy.

* * *

He doesn’t completely leave her mind. She still watches him out of the corner of her eye during mealtimes, as Pansy Parkinson drapes herself all over him and makes him fruit plates at breakfast, and Crabbe and Goyle laugh at his (probably) banal jokes during dinner. Since he is a year ahead, they don’t share any classes, but in the corridors she’ll catch him looking at her when nobody else is near.

He never approaches her, and though she wants to speak to him sometimes, to ask him about the growing shadows beneath his eyes, she walks resolutely onward and pushes Draco from her mind. He is not a part of her life. She will not be friends with a willing Death Eater. She has told Dumbledore what she knows, and she needs to trust that the headmaster is better equipped to handle the situation.

As she delves fully back into her life, Ginny wonders how she ever had the headspace for anything else. Alarming piles of homework, OWL study sessions, and early morning Quidditch practices overwhelm her free time. Now that the Gryffindor team is whole again, everyone is in good spirits.

The game with Ravenclaw is on Saturday, and even though a 300 point victory is a long shot, everyone on the team feels the win is within their grasp. On the pitch, Ginny is buoyed by the cold spring winds, infected by the team’s optimism.

She laughs easily and often.

She laughs often with Harry.

She notices that his gaze is becoming less tentative and more forward, his affection spilling out in his jokes and his lopsided grins. Unsure how she feels about this, Ginny keeps her distance. She surrounds herself with friends when Harry is near, when he has that soft look in his eyes. She isn’t ready to face him alone, unable to fully recall that feeling of wanting Harry Potter so badly that she could think of nothing else.

If Harry does ask her out, she isn’t sure how she’ll respond. Thankfully, Ron is committed to discussing Quidditch strategy at every waking moment and refuses to leave Harry’s side. 

It’s a few days before the big match with Ravenclaw, and Ginny spends the afternoon in the library surrounded by dusty tomes, researching an essay for Professor Slughorn. As she and Concepta finally make it out into the light of day with ink-stained fingers, Alicia and Katie intercept Ginny at the entrance to the Great Hall with the news that Harry has earned detention with Snape and won’t play Seeker in the final match.

“You can’t be serious!” cries Ginny, furious. “That’s not fair! Snape just has it out for us, the greasy bastard.”

“What did Harry do to get detention?” Concepta asks, sitting down at the Gryffindor table.

“Nearly killed Malfoy in the boys’ bathroom,” says Alicia nonchalantly, filing her plate with Yorkshire puddings and roasted meat. “Moaning Myrtle won’t shut up about it. She’s been coming up through the pipes in all the girls’ toilets, telling anyone who will listen how Harry Potter is a murderer, and how gory and bloody the whole affair was.”

“Is he OK?” Ginny asks. Her insides squirm.

“Who? Harry? Yeah, he’s fine. He’s choked up about the game, though. Merlin, I really thought we were going to win this time,” says Katie.

“Don’t talk like we don’t have a chance!” Alicia retorts. “Dean is a decent Chaser, and Ginny, you’ll fill-in as Seeker.”

“What happened to Malfoy?” Ginny asks. “Does he have detention too?”

“He’s in the hospital wing,” Alicia says. “I think he’s hurt pretty bad. Myrtle says Harry did some kind of dark magic on him, but I don’t believe that. Harry wouldn’t do that.”

“No,” Ginny agrees faintly. “He wouldn’t.” She looks around, but doesn’t see Harry at the dinner table. Ron and Hermione aren’t there either. It’s still early in the day for dinner, and the Gryffindor table is mostly empty.

Lee Jordan leans over to join their conversation. “I heard Malfoy was the one who started the whole thing. He was trying to curse Harry. With an Unforgivable Curse,” he adds, pausing for emphasis. “Harry was just defending himself.”

“That sounds like Malfoy,” Katie agrees. “Trust a Slytherin to use an illegal curse at school.”

“Too bad we can’t prove it,” says Lee Jordan. “Myrtle was the only witness, but she’s not exactly a reliable narrator, what with all the wailing and the overflowing toilets.”

Ginny makes a show of moving the food around on her plate while Katie and Alicia begin to talk Quidditch strategy. She leaves the Great Hall with her food half-eaten. Concepta shoots her a concerned look, but Ginny doesn’t stop to explain.

She wants very much to go the hospital wing to have a look at him. Myrtle does like to exaggerate, but even Alicia said he was hurt pretty badly. But the hospital wing is probably full of Slytherins. Ginny isn’t prepared to be seen visiting Draco Malfoy’s sickbed, and she’s sure Draco wouldn’t appreciate her making an appearance in broad daylight. It’s not her place, anyway. He’s not her friend.

He’s not her anything.

A dislocated feeling of anger and worry rises in her throat like bile. _He probably deserved it_ , she thinks.

Ginny climbs the staircase to the Gryffindor Tower. She steps through the portrait hall in time to see Hermione berating Harry about his Potions textbook.

Hermione is fully indignant, waving her arms for emphasis. “How can you still stick up for that book when the spell - ”

“Will you stop harping on about the book!” Harry interrupts, sounding cross.

Ginny frowns and listens in. The tension in the room fuels her own frustration, and it feels good not to push it back down for once. She pieces together details of the bathroom duel and the spell in the textbook written by the unidentified Prince. Hermione won’t let it go, and Harry won’t quit defending his textbook, and the anger is tight in Ginny’s chest as she watches them argue, back and forth.

“Oh give it a rest, Hermione,” she finally exhales, and Harry’s eyes whip up to catch hers in surprise. How can she go on and on about some stupid book when Harry and Draco nearly murdered each in the boys lavatory. “By the sound of it, Malfoy was trying to use an Unforgivable Curse.” _Just like the bloody Death Eater he is_ , she almost adds. Instead she says, “You should be glad Harry had something good up his sleeve.”

“Well of course I’m glad Harry wasn’t cursed,” says Hermione, sounding both surprised and hurt at Ginny’s intervention. “But you can’t call that Sectumsempra spell good, Ginny. Look where it’s landed him! And I’d have thought, seeing at what this has done to your chances at the match- ”

“Oh, don’t start acting as though you understand Quidditch, you’ll only embarrass yourself.” Ginny snaps.

Hermione is too shocked to respond. Harry and Ron stare from her to Hermione without saying a word, until Ron grabs a book from a nearby coffee table and disappears behind it.

Harry is trying to catch her eye. He looks surprised, but pleased – he is barely containing the grin that’s threatening to erupt all over his face.

In the awkward, silent aftermath of the argument, Ginny finds an empty armchair and takes out the essay for Slughorn that she’s been working on all afternoon. She feels bad, but not bad enough to apologize. The anger in her chest has liquefied and cooled into a pool of worry. She wants to ask Harry for all the details, from the moment he spotted Draco Malfoy in the bathroom, to the moment Snape found Draco bleeding all over the floor. Was he breathing? Was he conscious? But Ginny doesn’t think she can formulate the questions without sounding abnormal.

Instead, she waits for the evening to pass, finishes her essay, and goes up to the girls’ dormitory at ten o’clock only to lie on her blankets in her pale blue nightgown and stare at the canopy of her bed.

She can hear the fifth-year girls sleeping all around her: even breathing, occasional hiccoughing coughs, irregular snores. She doesn’t know what time it is, but it’s pitch black in the room when Ginny gets out of bed and slips on a jumper over her nightgown. The floor is freezing. She tiptoes out of the room, down the staircase, and out of the portrait hole past the sleeping fat lady.

Keeping one eye out for Peeves, and the other for Filch and Mrs. Norris, Ginny makes her way through the silent castle, sticking to the shadows. The Bloody Baron floats up the corridor, and Ginny hides behind a suit of armour, then hurries into a secret passageway that Fred and George discovered in their second year, behind a large painting of a jolly monk. It takes her down several flights of stairs and just a stone’s throw from the hospital wing.

Moonlight trickles from the high windows, casting patterned shadows on the covers of the empty hospital beds. Madame Pomfrey is nowhere to be seen – probably in her own chambers for the night. Ginny steps inside, her bare feet silent on the stone tiles.

Draco is asleep in the only occupied bed. He is ivory-coloured in a room made of shadows. As Ginny approaches, she can see his bare chest wrapped in bandages where his blanket has fallen away, some of them dark with seeping stains. Her own breathing sounds too-loud in all the stillness.

She leans down and watches him sleep. His white-blond hair is plastered to his forehead, and his eyelids quiver from time to time without opening. His breath is even. Ginny can see the lean muscle in his bare arms, and she can see thin, silver scars below his collarbone, snaking across his ivory chest where the bandages have already come off.

He wakes with a start, seemingly from nothing at all. Recognizing Ginny, he tries to sit up too quickly, and grimaces. His eyes are wide and grey, and Ginny thinks he looks just like a ghost in the moonlit room. Like he’s already died, and come back to haunt her.

* * *

_Draco_

When he opens his eyes and sees her kneeling at the foot of his bed, he thinks at first that it’s Pansy come back to check on him. Very quickly, though, he realizes who it is. Even in the darkness her orange hair is unmistakable.

“I still think you’re an evil prat,” she says. “I’ve only come to see that you’re alive.”

Still groggy from sleep and from the potion Madame Pomfrey had given him for the pain, Draco stares at Ginny for a long moment. She really is lovely in the moonlight, otherworldly.

Thin trickles of pain still course through his body where the scars are healing. Draco wants to sit up fully, but doesn’t think he can manage it. “Your boyfriend tried to kill me,” he says instead.

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she says. “And you probably deserved it.” She lifts herself up to sit on the edge of his bed. Ginny is wearing a fuzzy mauve Christmas jumper and a nightgown that doesn’t quite reach her knees. Draco watches as she folds her long, pale legs beneath her. “Anyway, it was an accident. Harry didn’t know what that spell would do.”

“I kind of figured,” says Draco. “I didn’t think Potter knew any spells that cool, and if he did, he would never have the balls to use them.”

“It’s actually a good sort of spell for your complexion,” Ginny says with a smirk. “All that blood spurting out against your pale skin must have looked really dramatic.” She reaches over and traces the thin scars visible above his bandages, as if she can’t quite help touching him. Then, she lays her palm flat against his bare chest to feel his heartbeat.

Draco doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to scare her away. Something occurs to her, and she turns to look at his left arm. There is a thick bandage all around his forearm where the Dark Mark is burned into his skin.

“Snape did that before he took me into the hospital wing. Lucky he was the first one to find me.”

“So Snape knows, then,” says Ginny.

Draco realizes he’s given the Potions Master away. Would Ginny tell Dumbledore that he’s on the Dark Lord’s side after all? It’s another thing he’s got to worry about, but not now. He is too tired now to think about anything but Ginny Weasley running her fingers all along his chest, his arms, his face.

“I should go,” she says finally. “I’m sorry you got hurt,” she adds.

If Draco had the strength, he would lift his arms up to encompass her and draw her into him. “Stay with me,” he says instead. “Just lie down here for a moment longer.”

“I should let you rest,” Ginny whispers. “You don’t look so good.” 

“You should have seen me earlier,” he says with a grin. He finds her hand with his own and lattices their fingers together. “Just for a little while,” he whispers.

At first, it looks like she’s going to leave. But then, carefully, she lies down next to him on the narrow hospital bed which really is only meant for one person. Her ridiculous jumper tickles his chest. After a moment, she slips her bare legs inside his blanket. “It’s cold in here,” she explains somewhat bashfully. Her legs press against his pajama bottoms, and Draco stifles a yelp as her ice-cold toes find his own.

“Where are your shoes?” he asks.

“There wasn’t time for shoes,” she says.


	7. Chapter 7: Ginny's Boyfriend

Ginny

The early-morning sunlight filters down through the windows, and Ginny wakes with a start. She is disorientated, in a cocoon of warmth. Malfoy’s body is pressed against hers, his breath even and calm. A part of her wants to close her eyes and hold him tighter, bury herself into the crook of his neck and inhale that boy smell. 

Instead, Ginny slides out from under the covers, her bare feet silent on the stone floor. She must have fallen asleep. What if someone had seen them? What if she hadn’t woken in time, before Madame Pomfrey had appeared to check on Draco, before a gang of Slytherins had sauntered into the hospital wing? Ginny should be counting her lucky stars. 

She looks at him one last time. He’s peaceful, his bandaged chest rising and falling. His face is calm, free of tension, his white-blond hair splayed across his forehead. She feels a rush of affection that settles uneasily in the pit of her stomach. 

Ginny turns away. She hurries back through the silent castle, back through the secret passageway, and back into the Gryffindor common room (The fat lady is not happy to be woken by her urgent whispers). Somehow, with her heart hammering all the way, she manages to make it back to her dorm and into her bed, only moments before her dorm mates begin to stir. 

The day passes in a haze. She feels underslept, and every time she closes her eyes for a moment, she can picture him perfectly: his bandaged chest and the tired, pleading look he gave her last night. He looked so wretched in that hospital bed. Ginny has to remind herself how he got there: he nearly cursed Harry with an Unforgivable. 

Things are awkward between her and Hermione, and Concepta keeps giving her knowing glances like she can read Ginny’s mind. She slogs through her morning classes. In Defense Against the Dark Arts, Snape deducts ten points from Gryffindor because Ginny ignores him completely when he asks her a question. 

She tries to pry her mind away from Draco Malfoy, to focus on the tasks in front of her, but he is always there at the back of her mind, at the front of her wayward thoughts. Stop it, she tells herself. So he got himself injured and nearly cursed Harry, that’s hardly reason to gloss over his bad qualities. He’s arrogant and petty. He’s mean and heartless. 

Maybe not heartless, Ginny thinks. 

Maybe not entirely. 

That evening, Harry keeps the Gryffindor team is on the pitch well past sundown. Ginny can barely make out Ron in the Keeper’s Ring across the pitch. She lurches forward on her broom, ducking beneath Demelza and Dean who pass the Quaffle back and forth in a complicated, zigzagging pattern that Harry has etched into the sky for them to follow. Ginny scans the air for the tiny, golden ball. She wonders if she can hone her Seeker skills quickly enough to win the cup. Harry’s on his broom, but he doesn’t play; he knows he’ll have detention during the match, so he drills them mercilessly. The match with Ravenclaw is one day away. 

It’s proper nightfall by the time they leave the pitch. She walks back to the castle with Ron and Harry, wiping the sweat from her forehead and releasing her hair from its ponytail. The boys begin to climb the staircase to the Gryffindor tower, but Ginny lingers. “You go ahead,” she calls. “I’ve got to meet some friends at the library.” 

“At this hour?” asks Ron. “Madame Pince’ll send you straight back to the common room.” 

“Just mind your own business, Ron,” she mutters, and stalks off in the other direction. 

She wishes she had Harry’s invisibility cloak, but all she can conjure is a simple concealment charm. It doesn’t hide her from view, but it does make her less noticeable, more likely to blend into the background. It is just enough to let her peek into the hospital wing and check on Malfoy without being seen. 

She thought it would be late enough, that he would be alone, but Pansy Parkinson is sitting on the edge of the hospital bed. She is touching him: her finger trailing his bare arm. Blood rushes to Ginny’s face. She has an impulse to leave, but she lurks in the doorway instead. 

“You look better, Draco,” says Pansy. Her voice is surprisingly gentle. Normally, Pansy communicates by spitting insults, but with Draco her voice has grown soft and feathery. “You’ve suffered so much. I hope Potter is expelled.” 

“You know that would never happen.” 

“Not with Dumbledore running the school. It’s unfair. You could have been killed.” She brushes back his hair, her fingers lingering on his forehead. 

Draco sneers. “He should be punished, at the very least. He’s just got detention. Probably doing lines for Snape. Sure, he can’t play Quidditch, but that’s hardly adequate punishment if you ask me.”

“It’s preferential treatment.” 

“For Dumbledore’s golden boy. Big surprise.” 

It’s like they finish each others’ sentences. Ginny rolls her eyes. He is such a wanker, and here Ginny is, vying to be Mrs. Wanker. 

Draco does look stronger. He’s sitting up, his shoulders squared, and his new set of bandages are no longer stained dark with his blood.

Pansy leans over and places her head against his heart, the place where Ginny lay only hours before. “Soon that will all change,” she says quietly, so Ginny has to strain to make out her words. “Soon the Dark Lord will rid this school of Mudbloods and blood traitors, and people like us will receive our due reward.” 

“It’s only a matter of time,” Draco smirks. He moves his head sideways, and his lips fall on Pansy’s temple. He kisses it softly. 

Ginny nearly trips over her own feet backing out the door. Draco lifts his grey eyes abruptly, searching the doorway, but she’s outside his field of vision. 

She hurries back to the Gryffindor common room, a knot in her stomach. Forget it. Forget him. 

The Common Room is nearly empty save a few Seventh Years chatting in a corner. Ginny sinks into a sofa across from the fireplace. With a flick of her wand, a fire begins to stir in the hearth. She stares at it, growing warm, drawing her legs into her chest. She’s not eleven anymore, and it’s about time she stop pining over dark wizards and evil arseholes. 

\--------------

Harry steps tentatively through the portrait hole. He takes a moment to appraise the situation, and Ginny watches his expression change as he realizes that they’ve won the Quidditch Cup. 

She mirrors his wide grin from across the room, so happy she laughs out loud at his astonished expression. Her heart has been thrumming continuously since her fingers closed around the Snitch, since the deafening roar of the crowd erupted from the stands, since her teammates crushed her into a hug as they each landed on the slippery grass. It was amazing, incredible. The Gryffindors won an epic victory, and Ginny was a fucking superstar. 

Harry begins to make his way through the crowd. The cheering, which barely had a chance to die down, resumes in full force when the Gryffindors spot their captain. Ginny is pumped full of adrenaline, her face bright red, dancing on the balls of her feet. 

Harry stands in the middle of the room, grinning broadly. The crowd is wild all around him, but The Boy Who Lived only has eyes for her. 

Ginny decides then and there to stop avoiding Harry and his lingering gaze, to stop hiding behind Ron, to stop putting off the inevitable. They won the match, she caught the Snitch, and now she will reward herself with a new start. With the right start.

Ginny takes two long strides towards him. He meets her with alarming decidedness. He is broader than she realized, more solid in this close proximity. Harry takes her by the elbows, and draws her into him. And before she quite finds her footing, his face is in hers, his mouth is on hers, his tongue is flicking shyly against her closed lips. 

Ginny pulls away, breathless. She hears somebody wolf-whistle. She looks over her shoulder and sees Concepta giving her a thumbs up. She sees Ron shrugging at Harry, as if to say “Go ahead, mate.” Ginny turns back to Harry. His glasses are askew, and his green eyes are wide and nervous. 

He is so unlike Draco. He wears it all on his face, everything he feels. He is easy to read, easy to love. He is the hero, after all. 

Ginny pulls on Harry’s robes, pulls his face close to hers, and presses her lips against his. 

……………………….

Draco

Draco surveys his scars. They crisscross his chest, fine, silver lines etched onto his skin. Madame Pomfrey says they will fade over time, but will never vanish entirely. Dark magic leaves a mark. But he already knew that. 

He shrugs on a clean shirt, buttons it up. He puts on his Slytherin robes and combs his hair back. He stares at himself in the mirror. He looks unscathed. Maybe a bit more pale than usual, a bit thinner, his cheekbones more pronounced, the shadows darker under his eyes. 

Draco blinks rapidly. He needs to get it together. He’s lost nearly a week recovering in the hospital wing, and the Dark Mark has been pulsating on his arm, making him acutely aware of the numbered days remaining until the end of term. 

A thought occurs to him: Dumbledore will be dead before the students of Hogwarts head home for the year, and it will be by Draco’s own hand. The alternative is his own death. Draco swallows hard, keeping his face impassive. He isn’t ready to die, and for once, he isn’t going to fail. 

As he leaves the boy’s dormitory, Crabbe and Goyle flank him on either side. He meets Pansy and Millicent queuing up for breakfast in the Great Hall. It’s Sunday, and it’s the first truly warm day of the year. He can see the sun coming in through the tall windows, and the wide blue sky beyond. After months of fog and rain, summer is on the horizon. In spite of everything, a tinge of optimism blooms in his chest. 

As they approach, Pansy’s brow wrinkles with worry. “Oh, Draco,” she says in the syrupy voice she’s taken to using with him. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” he says. 

“Oh, well I’m so glad you’re finally out of the hospital wing.” She loops her arm into his, and they make their way to the Slytherin table. 

While Pansy reaches for the eggs, he scans the hall. He wants to see Ginny Weasley: Her freckled face, her fierce eyes, and her lovely, sweeping red hair. He waited for her each night in the hospital wing, but she never returned. 

He won’t make a scene, won’t do anything rash. He just wants to look at her, maybe catch her eye, maybe talk to her privately. It might be a side-effect of being torn open by Potter’s curse, but he needs to talk to her before he goes back to the Room of Requirement and returns to the Dark Lord’s task. To really talk to her, to make her understand the stakes so that she won’t hate him when it’s all said and done. 

But she’s not in the Great Hall. Pansy notices him staring at the Gryffindor table. “Looks like Potter’s not showing his face at mealtimes,” she scoffs. “He’s probably afraid you’ll retaliate now that you’re healthy again.”

After breakfast, Draco follows most of the student body outdoors. Everyone is drawn to the sunshine, shrugging off their winter cloaks, sprawling across new patches of green grass. With Grabbe and Goyle trailing behind, Draco walks along the path that curves around the lake, the same path where he and Ginny argued days ago (or was it weeks ago?). He turns a corner, and that’s when he sees them. 

They are kissing in plain sight.

Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley are sitting beneath a drooping yew tree, and Potter’s arm is around her waist, and his stupid, ugly face is pushed right up against hers. 

Draco stops short. Grabbe and Goyle also pause, waiting for Draco to comment, to say something derisive, so they can laugh on cue. 

His face grows hot, anger and shock pounding at his temples. “Potty and Weasel,” he shouts a note too loud. She turns in surprise. “Isn’t this just a match made in heaven? A blood traitor and a Mudblood lover.” The sneer quivers on his lips. 

A writhing insecurity has awakened in Draco’s gut. Of course she never returned to see him. Of course she forgot all about him once Potter finally worked up the nerve to ask her out. He crosses his arms to keep his hands from shaking. “Disgusting. Do that in your own common room, will you? We just ate, and I don’t want Crabbe here to hurl up his sausages.” 

“Sod off, Malfoy,” says Potter. He’s mildly annoyed. 

Ginny says nothing, only looks up defiantly to frown at him. But when she meets his eyes, a shadow of guilt crosses her features. 

Draco blinks several times. Then, he turns and walks back towards the castle. Crabbe and Goyle barely have time to bark out their laughter before having to turn around and stumble after him. 

He sits for a long time in the empty Potions classroom. Everyone is outside, enjoying the warm weather, and the room is ensconced in a cool, dusty silence. 

The old jealousy sits like a leaden ball in the pit of his stomach. Draco still wants her so badly. He wants to touch her, to run his hands through her red curls, to feel her body against his. He wants her, but Potter gets to have her. Famous Harry Potter gets everything handed to him, as usual. He gets to kiss her, and hold her hand, and walk laughing down the hallways alongside Weasel and the Mudblood, and the whole sodding world will cheer for them.


	8. Chapter 8: Draco's Triumph

**Chapter 8: Draco’s Triumph**

_Ginny_

The whole school is abuzz with rumours about her and Harry. Ginny feels like she’s been thrown into the spotlight, like she’s dating a celebrity (which in some sense, she is).

It’s not that she was unknown or unpopular before, but this new popularity leaves a different taste in her mouth. It is part curiosity, part envy, and it does not feel altogether friendly. She’s never been one to care what other people think. Between Fred and George’s pranks and her brothers’ bickering and one up-man-ship, Ginny had developed a thick skin at a young age. Still, she can feel their eyes prickle the back of her neck, the constant feeling of being observed and judged.

Poor Harry, she thinks. He’s always occupied this space.

Of course she’s been friends with Harry for years, and they’ve spent plenty of time together before, especially this past summer at the Burrow.

Now, they are friends who snog on occasion, and sometimes Harry will shyly take her hand into his. It inevitably grows sweaty, so Ginny removes it, wipes it on her thigh. There is some level of comfort and familiarity, but also a budding awkwardness at the newness of their relationship.

Harry is happy. Hermione tells her as much. They are sitting in the common room and having something akin to girl talk, though neither Ginny nor Hermione are normally the girl-talk type.

“He just seems relaxed, doesn’t he? Like he’s floating on a cloud,” says Hermione with a smile.

Ginny nods. She picks at a hangnail. She can see for herself that Harry is thoroughly content. 

“It’s just so natural, you two getting together.”

“Like you and Ron?”

“Oh!” Hermione blushes furiously. “Well, I mean, not exactly…”

Ginny laughs and slaps her on the shoulder. “Oh, come on. I’m only having a go.” But they both know that Hermione and her brother are as preordained as she and Harry.

She imagines them grown up, both married, the dark times behind them, with a gaggle of red-headed children. Just like a picture on a greeting card. She’ll knit hideous Christmas jumpers just like Mum, and fret over whether little Harry Junior is getting into undue trouble.

Ginny rips off the hangnail and smiles at Hermione. “I’ve always had a bit of a crush on Harry. You know that,” she says. “So yeah…it’s nice to finally be together. Of course it is.”

In the end, she and Harry scarcely see each other because Ginny is studying for her OWLs. She’s already written the Transfiguration and Potions OWL, and they both went well enough. If anything, Hermione seems more on edge on her behalf.

And Draco Malfoy… she can’t help but look at him whenever he’s near. She can feel his presence even before her eyes find his blond head in the crowd. Her stomach clenches when she sees him. He looks worse each time, thinner and more pale, his eyes bloodshot, always distracted.

There is an air of desperation about him that she tries and fails to ignore, that creeps into her thoughts when she is alone, and oftentimes even when she is with Harry.

When his eyes flit across hers, there is always that look of betrayal. But he avoids her when he can, avoids her gaze entirely.

\- - - - - - - - - - -

Ginny steps outside and takes a great gulp of fresh air. It’s not that she’s avoiding the common room (or Harry); she just needs to clear her head after hours of cramming in the library for the Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL. This one’s got to count if she’ll have any hope of becoming an Auror someday. 

She loops around to the back of the castle, hugging the contours of the Quidditch pitch, wandering aimlessly. It’s getting warmer every day, and there’s a sweet, misty taste to the wind.

She looks up to see Draco Malfoy walking towards her.

He catches sight of her at the same moment. And he stops walking, as if unsure whether he should go forward, or turn around.

He decides to keep going, and they reach one another on the path, alone for the first time in weeks.

“Malfoy,” says Ginny as he approaches. “You look awful.” He really does. His robes are neat, as always, but his face is all angles and shadows. He looks exhausted.

“Thanks, Weasley,” he drawls. He walks right by her, but then turns around to face her without completely stopping. “How’s Potter?”

Ginny doesn’t answer. Instead, she says the thing she’s been turning over in her mind for the last several days: “I did come to see you in the hospital wing, you know.”

He stops then, looking surprised. “When? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Pansy Parkinson was there. I didn’t want to interfere.”

“And you got jealous? Is that why … I mean, is that why you never….?” He’s not sure how to phrase the question, not sure how to define the tenuous bond they share.

“No I wasn’t jealous, Malfoy.” She feels frustration itching up her spine. “I was disgusted. I heard you talking, and it just reminded me how little you’ve changed.”

“Who says I’ve changed?” But he looks curious, and he takes a step towards her. “What do you mean, then? What did you hear?”

“You talked about blood traitors and the rise of the Dark Lord. You and Pansy, just the same way you’ve always talked with your Slytherin cronies.”

Draco sighs. “They’re just words, Ginny. They don’t mean anything.”

“Don’t they?” She is fuming, riling herself up. “So, you don’t mean it? You aren’t waiting for your _Dark Lord_ to prevail? You aren’t all hoping that the Ministry falls, that purebloods will take control, take precedence in the Magical world?”

“No … I don’t know. I don’t know, okay? I haven’t figured it out yet.”

“Well that’s not good enough. If you were a good person, you would know. You wouldn’t hesitate.”

“If I were a good person like Potter, you mean.”

“I didn’t say that. This isn’t about Harry.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

“No,” she says icily. “It’s about you Draco, and your bigotry, and your hatred. I don’t think you’re an evil person, but not being completely evil is a pretty low bar, don’t you think?”

For a moment, Draco doesn’t know how to respond. “I don’t think I’m evil,” he says finally. “I don’t think my family’s evil.”

“Well, they are. They believe in evil things, and they are following an evil man. How can you not see that? Didn’t you say it yourself, how you wish Voldemort had never returned?”

“ _Don’t!”_ hisses Draco. “Don’t say his name.” He brings his hands to his face, running his fingers anxiously through his hair. “It’s not so simple, can’t you see that? These are things I’ve always taken for granted, that everyone I know, everyone close me, has always believed.”

“Well, that’s not good enough,” she says again. She swallows hard, her anger mingling with something else, something she doesn’t want to think about. “I’m sorry, Draco. I’m not saying I don’t care about you. But having any kind of relationship, even talking to you like this - it’s not fair to myself, to the people I love.”

Ginny pauses, wanting to say more, but unsure if she should. “Look, I’ve already told Dumbledore everything.”

Draco looks up, startled, panicked. “What? When?”

“Weeks ago. Before you ended up in the hospital. After we had that argument by the lake.”

The colour drains from his face. “Then why hasn’t he done anything?”

“He says he knows what your mission is. He told me to forget about it, to let him worry about it.”

“No, that can’t be true.” Draco laughs, like the idea is absurd. “If he knew, he would stop me. He of all people…”

“Talk to the Headmaster. He can help you.”

Draco scoffs, his voice growing hollow. “He can’t help me.”

“Why not?”

“He just can’t, all right!”

Ginny feels herself losing control, her Weasley temper flaring. “I just can’t understand, after everything you’ve seen, everything I know you feel, that you would still hesitate to denounce Voldemort.”

“Don’t say it,” he says weakly. “It’s not so easy, Ginny.”

“Isn’t it, though?” She feels the anger full-on now, the helpless anger rushing through her like Fienfyre: anger that he is failing her, that he won’t be the honourable person she needs him to be. “But I understand now. You were always just a jealous, spoiled prat, weren’t you Draco?”

“What?”

“You were never as famous as Harry, or as good at Quidditch, and you weren’t as smart as Hermione, and you can’t seem to get a proper hex past me. You’re always trying to make yourself out to be more special than you are. And now, finally, you are special. You’ve been chosen, haven’t you?”

He unconsciously clutches his arm, where the Dark Mark burns beneath his sleeve.

“Well fine, then. If you want to keep building yourself up on hate and lies, that’s fine. But I won’t be part of it. You’re planning something terrible, I know you are, and it’s not too late to back down. But you’ve got to make that choice.”

He looks at Ginny, and for once his eyes are unguarded, full of worry and pain, of indecision. “It’s not so easy,” he says again, softer this time. He takes a step closer, and even through her anger, she wants to go to him, to wrap her arms around his neck, to draw him into her.

“Do you love Potter?” he asks.

Ginny looks into his face. Her heart contracts. “Yes,” she says because she wants to believe it. She _will_ love Harry. She _won’t_ let herself have feelings for a Death Eater.

A bare, desperate look of betrayal flashes across his face. And then he composes himself. He looks at her coldly. “You’re wrong about me. I’ve already made my choice.” He pushes past her and he doesn’t look back.

* * *

_Draco_

He doesn’t sleep. He goes to the Room of Requirement every evening after dinner, and he stays there until morning. He’s given up using Crabbe and Goyle as lookouts. It’s too much hassle, and when it’s late enough, the seventh floor corridor is abandoned anyway. Pansy is starting to ask questions about why he’s never around, but he feeds her simple excuses: at the library, prefect duties, favours for Snape. It’s clear she is not buying them, that she is noticing how unraveled he must look each morning, but Draco doesn’t care.

There is so little time, only weeks to go before the end of term, so he is throwing caution to the wind.

He doesn’t mind. It’s a distraction. And he’s getting closer.

Sometimes he is so tired that he falls asleep propped up against the cabinet in the Room of Requirement. He startles awake, never sure what time it is.

In the daytime, he still makes it to most of his classes, but he’s lost focus, lost any care he had for school. Charms and Transfiguration lessons won’t matter in the long run. Next year, he probably won’t even be back at Hogwarts. It’s not like he has to worry about taking his NEWTs.

His Dark Mark burns intermittently now. But even this feeling is numbed like all the others, numbed by his exhaustion and his single-focus: the Vanishing Cabinet.

And then it happens.

He’s had scarcely an hour in the Room of Requirement, fiddling with the cabinet, rereading the dog-eared pages of the book he’d dug up on magical artefacts, trying the same incantations and adjusting his wand movement. And he senses a change.

He opens the cabinet doors and looks inside. What had always felt like a windy, broken channel now sharpens into focus.

His heart beating, Draco steps fully into the cabinet. If he is wrong, he could become trapped like Montague was last year. But he is not wrong; he can feel it as surely as he can breathe the musty air of the small space. He closes the door, turns around, and opens another door.

Draco steps into Borkin and Burkes. The shop is dark, closed for the day. Outside, he can see the street lamps glittering on the wet pavement; it’s raining in London. He can hear the wet smack of rain on the deserted street.

He walks around the empty shop, stunned by his own success. It worked perfectly. Even he didn’t think it would be so easy. With all of its charms and its protective spells developed by some of the best wizards of the ages, he had managed to open a door directly into Hogwarts.

He grins, the warmth of his success spreading through his chest. He’s really done it, and without anyone’s help.

The rain continues to fall in a steady pitter-patter. Draco paces, listening to rain, his thoughts looping wildly in his exhausted mind. After a while, he steps back into the cabinet, closes the door, and opens a new one. He is back in the Room of Requirement, back at Hogwarts.


	9. Dumbledore's Offer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Thank you so much for the comments and kudos! It makes me feel so happy that someone out there is enjoying this fic. Some of the dialogue in this chapter is taken from HBP.

**Chapter 9: Dumbledore’s Offer**

_Draco_

Maybe it’s all the hours spent alone in the Room of Requirement, but Draco is beginning to think that his own mind is something like that room. It’s filled with odds and ends, things kept hidden, objects tucked away.

He’s always been good at compartmentalization. He can lock up an unpleasant idea, a disturbing thought, a secret wish. He can keep everything in its place.

But there is a point, a breaking point, when it becomes too much. When the room becomes too cluttered. When the things tucked away, the unpleasant things, begin to topple over and scatter everywhere before Draco can clean them up, organize them back into place.

There is Father in Azkaban.

There is the Dark Lord threatening his life and his family.

There is the Malfoy name, fallen to disfavour.

There is Pansy hovering over him, Grabbe and Goyle, Zabini and Nott, asking questions about what he’s up to, wanting details about all the innuendos he’s been dropping since the start of term.

There is Snape trailing his every move.

There is his task. The killing curse. The Headmaster.

There is Ginny Weasley.

He closes his eyes and the image of her spills into the forefront of his mind: the way she looked in the moonlight of the hospital ward. Her fingers warm against the chill of skin. Her body hot against his beneath the covers. Their legs entangled. Her breath a steady puff against his face.

There is Potter. Always Potter, always in the way. Always the victor.

Draco opens his eyes. He takes a shaky breath, and pushes the thoughts down, down, back into the nooks and hidden crannies of his brain. He pushes down the fear, the shame, the hurt and the envy.

He looks at his reflection in the mirror in the prefect’s bathroom and adjusts his tie.

Now he’s the victor. None of them know what’s coming.

__________________

As soon as Draco sent word to Mother that he found a way into Hogwarts, his aunt Bellatrix took over. He’d managed to keep his plans secret for months, to keep Snape out of his head, to keep control.

But that’s all quickly unraveling.

At first, his aunt wouldn’t take him seriously. He had to meet her and Mother at Borgin and Burke’s one morning to prove that he’d really found a way into the castle.

When he stepped through the cabinet into the shop, Bellatrix went wild. She shrieked like a harpy, grabbed his shoulders and put her face right up to his. She told him, “Well done, Draco! The Dark Lord will be so pleased.” Her breath smelled like decay.

Mother looked sick with worry. She hugged him for a full five minutes, standing in the middle of the dusty shop with arms locked around his torso. Draco would have pushed her away if he hadn’t felt so exhausted, and frankly, a little in need of a hug.

Aunt Bellatrix took charge after that.

She tells him that she will get everything organized on the outside. Draco’s only remaining job is to send word the next time Dumbledore leaves the castle. (And to kill the Headmaster of course.)

And after that … Well, he isn’t sure. He isn’t privy to that information, even though he orchestrated the entire thing. He supposes that he’ll need to run from Hogwarts, that Bellatrix will help him to escape after it’s all finished.

Draco sits on the leather sofa in the common room, turning the enchanted Galleon over in his hands. Rosmerta has the other one, to let him know the moment Dumbledore Apparates out of Hogsmeade. Draco has been maintaining the Imperius curse over the barmaid since Christmas. It’s been a drain on his magic, another reason he’s been feeling so foggy and tired.

Pansy finds him on the sofa. It’s early afternoon and nobody else is in the common room; his housemates have all gone to class. He’s supposed to be in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but he didn’t feel like going. What is Snape going to do about it, anyway? Give him detention? Make him write lines? Not likely.

Pansy should be somewhere as well, but she just stands there and stares at him, chewing on her bottom lip. Draco isn’t spending his nights in the Room of Requirement anymore, but he hasn’t quite shaken the insomnia. He probably looks like hell.

She kneels beside him, her dark eyes boring into his. “What is it Draco? You look unwell. I’m worried about you.”

Ginny Weasley wouldn’t fret over him like this. She would shake him to his senses, maybe threaten him with a good hex if he didn’t snap out of his funk. But Ginny doesn’t want to give him the time of day. She’d rather snog Potter all over the school.

He takes Pansy’s hands. She’s been kind to him these past months. She understands him and his family, his values. He tilts her chin with one hand, and he bends down to kiss her. Pansy’s lips are wet, sliding against his, and they open eagerly. She climbs onto the leather sofa next to him, gripping his head, pulling him into her, breathing heavily. Draco closes his eyes. He tries to feel something, but he just feels tired.

He pushes her away. “I’ve got to go, Pansy,” he says. He tries to say it apologetically, but his voice sounds hollow even to his own ears.

He’s still at Hogwarts, but on some level it’s like he’s already gone, hiding away at the Manor with the Dark Lord and his mad aunt.

\---------

The antique cabinet opens, and Bellatrix Lestrange steps into the Room of Requirement. She grins at Draco. “Are you ready, nephew?” she whispers, “This is your great moment.”

His throat is dry, so he nods.

The door opens again, and behind Bellatrix come the Carrow siblings, squat and trollish, then Yaxley and Rowle. Gibbon follows. He knows them all from the Manor, and some of them from earlier still, from his childhood. Yaxley is a good friend of Father’s.

They crowd into the already crowded room, eyeing him roughly, their wands out. Draco didn’t expect so many of them to show up tonight.

The cabinet door opens again, and Fenrir Greyback steps out of it.

Draco takes a step back, hitting the pile of clutter behind him. The werewolf radiates the stench of blood and rubbish. Draco’s heart is beating hard. It hits him suddenly that there will be violence beyond his role with Dumbledore. Others could be hurt, could be killed. The werewolf looks hungry.

_What have I done?_ he thinks. But it’s too late now for second guessing. He’s made his choice. Maybe he should have listened to Ginny, talked to the Headmaster, or maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference.

Draco grips his wand and tries to still his pounding heart. He catches Yaxley’s eye, and an ugly leer spreads across the big Death Eater’s face. “Let’s go kill some Mudbloods,” he hisses. And he means it.

____

Ginny

Ginny feels Harry’s Felix Felicis potion coursing through her. There’s tension in the air, like something tangible, but she feels up for the fight. Her wand is out. Beside her, Ron and Neville are ready, their eyes shining. Ron is holding the Marauder’s map, and they know Draco is in the Room. They all know it, even without the map, because standing here feels the right place to be.

Ginny wonders if he’s alone. She wants to get to him first, to talk him down. She thinks she can do it. She feels his uncertainly, like he needs her now more than he’s ever needed anyone. His need burns in her blood, pulses through her together with the potion. If she could just take his hand, pull him towards her and away from whatever he’s gotten himself into.

She stands a little apart from her brother, a little ahead of Neville, and her eyes never leave the bare stretch of stone.

The Room of Requirement opens, but it isn’t Draco who steps out. Bellatrix Lestrange looks around, appraising the seventh floor hallway, a hateful smear of a grin cut across her pallid face. There are others behind her, far more Death Eaters than Ginny could have imagined entering the castle. Then Draco.

His grey eyes meet hers. His face is white. He mouths something at her. _Run._

Then everything goes dark.

She’s never been in such impenetrable blackness. Ginny feels around and grips Neville’s shoulder. “We’ve got to follow them!” she cries.

They bumble around, holding on to each other and to the walls. The darkness begins to dissipate into greys, and as luck would have it, she catches sight of a Death Eater’s boot right before it vanishes around a corner.

“They’ve gone up the staircase!” shouts Ron. He’s seen it too. They hurry after them, racing up two stairs at a time. Sweat builds beneath her palm, and she grips her wand tighter, her lungs beginning to burn as they climb higher and higher.

“The Astronomy Tower,” says Neville, panting.

She pushes past him, her eyes narrowed. She wants to fight.

_________

_Draco_

The wind whips up

You are no assassin,” says the Headmaster.

“How do you know what I am?” Draco shouts. But his voice shakes. Draco curses his nerves. “I’m not afraid of you, old man. It is _you_ that should be afraid!” Oh Merlin, his words sound childish even to his own ears. His hand is shaking so badly he can barely hold on to his wand.

The Dark Mark hovers in the sky above the Astronomy Tower like a terrifying portent.

Dumbledore’s eyes are kind, in spite of everything. He leans heavily against the wall. “I don’t think you will kill me, Draco,” he says softly. “Killing is not as easy as the innocent believe.” He readjusts his position, wincing in pain.

Draco can hear the commotion on the other side of the door, and he feels the sweat gathering on his brow, stinging his eyes. He swats it away with one hand. He stepped over a body on the way here. Who’s was it?

“Why don’t you tell me, Draco, how you managed to smuggle Death Eaters into the castle.” The headmaster speaks conversationally, as if they are making small talk at a garden party.

Dumbledore is probably trying to distract him, just vying for more time, but Draco can’t help telling him the details. “I did it right under your nose,” he says, and pride slips into his words. “I fixed the Vanishing Cabinet, the one Montague got stuck in last year.” He tells Dumbledore everything, even about the Imperius curse and the enchanted Galleons. It calms Draco down, gives him something else to focus on other than the glaring fact that he has the Headmaster at wandpoint, yet they both know that he is too weak to kill him.

The old man listens with no trace of shock or anger, his blue eyes watching him with benign curiosity. Ginny was right. The Headmaster had known all along. He may have been hazy on the details, but Dumbledore had known that for all these months Draco had been plotting his demise.

Yet what does it matter? The old man will die tonight either way. And Draco will have to do it. He can wait for the others to fight their way back up to the tower, but he needs to be the one. _Avada Kadavra._ He just needs to say it.

“There is little time, Draco,” Dumbledore whispers, distracting his thoughts. Draco realizes he had fallen silent, had allowed his story to taper off into silence. The clamour on the other side of the door has gotten so loud that the other Death Eaters seem steps away from the tower. “Let us discuss your options,” says the old wizard.

“My options!” Draco sounds desperate and he knows it. He abandons the pretense of bravado that has long slipped away. He can feel his panic bubbling out of him. “I haven’t got any options, do I? I’ve got to do to this, or he’ll kill me. He’ll kill my whole family.” Saying it out loud in front of Dumbledore terrifies him. Draco can feel himself shaking.

“Come over to the right side, Draco,” says the Headmaster. His voice is never above a ragged whisper, but Draco catches every word. “We can hide you more completely than you can imagine. We can protect your family, Draco. Come over to our side.”

“But I’ve gotten this far, haven’t I?” he whispers. “They thought I’d die in the attempt, but I’m here…and I’ve got you at my mercy.”

“No, Draco. It is my mercy, and not yours, which matters now.”

He stares at Dumbledore. The life seems to be seeping out of the old man of its own accord. He hears footsteps pounding below. It’s too late; they’re too close, and soon they will overwhelm them and force Draco to finish the job.

Draco shuts his eyes a moment, the wind whipping his hair, roaring in his ears. Ginny was right. He’s a shit Death Eater. He wants to be on her side. He wants to be fighting with her, not against her.

Most of all, he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He doesn’t want to become a killer, to live in this perpetual fear and violence.

His wand arm drops leaden to his side. “Alright,” he whispers.

“Yes?” Dumbedore wants him to say it.

“I’ll do what you want. I won’t kill you. We both know I can’t.”

“Good Draco. Good.” The headmaster’s smile is genuine despite his evident pain. “You must bring me Professor Snape. Can you do that Draco?”

He stares unbelievingly at the old man. “Snape’s not on your side, you fool!” There is a bang and loud tussle just outside the door. Both Draco and Dumbledore watch it wobble on its hinges.

“Never mind, Draco. They are coming now, it is too late. Listen to me. Do not follow them out of the castle tonight. Whatever happens, you must find Minerva and tell her your decision.”

“Professor McGonagall? The old hag hates me. She’ll never believe me, not after she realizes I’ve let Death Eaters into the castle.”

“We are not alone, Draco. There’s someone here listening. He has heard everything that you’ve said tonight, and he will vouch for you.”

Draco’s laugh sounds unhinged, even to his own ears. “There’s nobody here! You’ve gone barmy!”

“You will come over to our side, won’t you Draco? Perhaps you should say it again, to leave no doubt.”

Draco lowers his eyes, unable to face the Headmaster’s steady, kind stare. His gaze falls on the two brooms abandoned at the foot of the tower. He exhales sharply, closing his eyes. “Yes, alright? I’m not….I’m not a killer. I don’t want to hurt you, okay? I don’t want to be a Death Eater.”

At that moment the door bangs open and four Death Eaters shove their way onto the Astronomy Tower.


	10. Dumbledore's Fall

**Chapter 10: Dumbledore’s Fall**

_Draco_

Snape is at the forefront of the group. He locks eyes with Dumbledore, and for the first time that night, the headmaster’s voice is pleading. “Please, Severus.”

The look on Snape’s face is pained, so much that Draco thinks for a split-second that Dumbledore is right to trust him. He half-expects Snape to turn on the other Death Eaters, to whisk the slumped, old man away to safety.

Instead, Snape points his wand at the headmaster. “Avada Kadavra!” He says it with finality. Snape’s wand never wavers. The spell hits Dumbledore squarely and with such force that he is lifted into the air, seems to hang for an eternal moment in empty space, and then plummets soundlessly out of sight.

Draco can’t stifle a gasp. The man is surely dead.

Before he can move, Snape grips him hard by the shoulder and pulls him forward. He is dimly aware of Yaxley and Bellatrix in his peripheral vision. The other Death Eaters must be close behind. They all burst back into the castle where a battle is still raging. Draco twists around, looking back through the lopsided door, back out at the Astronomy Tower, not quite believing what he’d just witnessed. He sees Potter materialize from nowhere, his wand raised, his mouth contorted in an unheard oath. Potter bursts after them through the door, his expression wild.

They run through the madness of flying hexes and crumbling walls, Snape pushing Draco ahead of him, the unsuspecting members of the faculty stepping aside to let them pass. He looks frantically for Ginny’s telltale red hair, but he doesn’t see her, and Snape’s fingers are digging into his shoulder, urging him forward. Suddenly they are hurtling down the staircase, two steps at a time. Snape pushes him on, faster, faster.

Draco glances back to see Potter round a corner, shouting hoarsely, not close enough to catch them yet, but close at their heels.

They skid into the main entranceway, out of breath, and Draco finally breaks away from Snape’s grip. He didn’t see Ginny. Could hers be one of the bloodied bodies on the ground, beneath the rubble? His aunt and the Carrow siblings dash past them, escaping through the great oaken doors.

Snape reaches for him, but Draco pulls away. “Come here, Draco,” he snaps, and his voice is tight and breathless.

“I’m not going,” he says.

They can both hear Potter running down the staircase. He’ll be here any moment.

Snape growls with impatience. “This is no time for games, Draco. You will come with me now. I promised your mother I would protect you, and I intend to fulfill that promise.”

“Tell my mother I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not coming. I’m never coming back. I’m not a Death Eater.” He looks desperately at Snape, and yanks up his sleeve, thrusting the Mark at him. “I’m not a killer!” he shouts, and his trembling voice echoes off the castle’s stone archway. “I don’t want any of this. It was a mistake.”

Snape’s black eyes are impenetrable. He stares at Draco for a beat, then turns swiftly and disappears out the main doors without another word.

Seconds later, Potter rushes past him, his eyes full of madness, of unbridled hatred. He follows Snape into the darkness.

Draco stares after them, catching his breath, his heart still beating wildly. He can see students in their night clothes, drawn from their common rooms by the commotion. He tries to swallow, but his throat is completely dry. What has he done? What about his mother, and his father in Azkaban? Will they suffer the Dark Lord’s ire on his behalf?

He cannot face the confused, sleepy looks of the students milling slowly into the corridors. Professor Trelawney is hurrying ahead of the crowd, and Filch is close behind, both in their dressing gowns.

And then he sees Ginny. She is descending the staircase with Longbottom. Her hair is covered in white dust and debris, but she is whole and alive. Draco exhales. She is making her way down the stairs, to join the trickle of students who whisper urgently about the Dark Mark above the Tower, of nighttime battles and Death Eaters at Hogwarts.

As the torches flare all over the waking castle, Draco takes two steps back into the shadows. He realizes his sleeve is still exposed, and yanks it down, wiping his sweaty brow with his other arm.

The first curious onlookers begin to wander outside, into the spring-scented darkness. Draco’s stomach drops as he realizes where they are drawn, and what they will find at the foot of the Astronomy Tower. He imagines Ginny’s face when she sees what he has done, what he has orchestrated.

He turns away from the gathering crowd, and he runs from the great oak doors into the first empty corridor he sees. The corridor is dark, and he stumbles into a coat of armour which clashes noisily to the ground. He can hear Peeves bursting into cackles somewhere above.

Draco picks himself up, drawing his wand. “Lumos,” he croaks. He hurries away from Peeves, but doesn’t know where to go. His first impulse is to go back to the Slytherin common room, but he can’t just carry on like nothing has happened. He can’t crawl into bed while the rest of the student body is drawn outside by some unnamable force, drawn to look upon the broken body of their headmaster. He certainly doesn’t have it in him to join them.

Snape killed Dumbledore, and Snape now knows that Draco is a traitor, that he is reneging on the promises he’s made to the Dark Lord. His days are numbered. He needs to hide.

He remembers then what Dumbledore told him, to find McGonagall.

He turns around and runs towards the Defense Against the Dark Arts Tower, where her office sits on the first floor overlooking the Quidditch Pitch. On the way, he passes more students heading in the opposite direction. They throw him curious glances, but Draco doesn’t pause, running faster. He should be less conspicuous, but he feels panic rising in his chest and the only way to temper it is to keep moving.

He skids to a breathless stop in front of her office. The door is ajar. He pushes it open and walks into an empty room. She must have left in a hurry, with no regard to locking the office behind her. She’ll probably be outside by now.

Draco decides to wait. She may not return for hours, maybe not until tomorrow morning, but he is in no rush to admit his failure, to denounce himself a traitor. He sinks to the floor at the foot of her desk, across from an empty fireplace which springs magically to life after sensing his presence.

Draco stares into the flames. He becomes dimly aware of a sound, a melody. It’s faint at first, but the song grows stronger the more he listens. It seems to be coming from within his own mind, pulsing through him like his own blood, a sad, longing melody that is both heartbreaking and cathartic. He closes his eyes and let’s the Phoenix’s lament overtake him.

\-----------

The night wears on. Finally, the Transfiguration Professor walks into her office, and Draco scurries to stand up. She stares at him in utter shock. “Mr. Malfoy,” she says. “We thought . . . we saw you running away with Severus.”

Draco rakes his fingers through his hair, which must be in complete disarray. Professor McGonagall looks battle-weary, scathed by minor hexes, her heavy robes torn and streaked with dirt (or is it blood?). He had planned his words carefully, but now finds he is too ashamed to say them.

“Well, Mr. Malfoy, go on then. Explain yourself!” McGonagall has recovered from the initial shock of seeing him in her office. She purses her lips, and one hand unobtrusively flutters towards her wand.

“I’ve been branded with the Dark Mark,” he begins. Best to get it all out in the open. He pulls up his sleeve, and McGonagall frowns distastefully at the black ink on his skin. “It happened this summer, before I returned to school. The Dark Lord had given me a task.” He pauses, his heart hammering suddenly in his ears. He didn’t think he’d be so nervous, saying it now, but he can barely keep his voice from shaking. “The task was to kill Albus Dumbledore.”

McGonagall lowers her eyes. Her whole body tenses. “Severus killed him. Potter said so. He was there.”

“I couldn’t do it,” Draco stutters. “Not at the end. Not the killing curse. But I did everything else. I’m the one who let Death Eaters into the castle.”

She looks him sharply in the eye then, and Draco tries not to cower at the intensity of her stare. “Do you not realize how much danger you’ve put us all in? You foolish, selfish boy!” She looks away, her wand now firmly in her grip, shaking her head. “But there are protective spells all over the castle. It’s not possible to enter . . . and if what you say is true, then why are you here? Why are you in my office, Mr. Malfoy? Why have you not fled the scene with your compatriots?”

“I guess you could say they are no longer my compatriots.” He tries to shrug. He isn’t sure how to explain.

Suddenly, Harry Potter bursts into the room. His face is strained, and there is a pinched, drawn look in is eyes. Draco has never seen him look so unraveled.

McGonagall whirls around. “Potter!” she exclaims. “I thought you’d gone to bed.”

“I saw that Malfoy was here,” he says tiredly.

“What do you mean you saw? Nobody saw me. I’ve been alone this whole time.” Draco eyes him suspiciously, feeling once again that Potter has some dirty, back-pocket tricks that nobody else knows about.

“Shut it, Malfoy,” he says irritably. “I’m here to help you, all right? It’s what Dumbledore wanted me to do. It’s what he said on the tower before . . .” Harry’s voice trails off.

They stand in silence a moment, each thinking about the end of that sentence, each replaying their versions of this terrible night, until McGonagall snaps out of it.

“Well, go on Mr. Potter. What is it that Professor Dumbledore wanted you to tell me?”

“He wanted me to vouch for him.” Potter thrusts one hand toward Draco. “Malfoy didn’t kill Dumbledore.”

“I know that, Potter. What else? Get on with it.”

Potter frowns. “Malfoy said that he didn’t want to be a Death Eater anymore. He said he would switch sides. Join the Order, I guess.”

Potter’s eyes dart upwards to catch Draco’s. Draco looks away, embarrassed. There is no question now that Potter was on the tower, that his was the second broom. He must have witnessed everything: Draco’s weakness, his ineffectual threats, his final unraveling.

McGonagall looks from Draco to Potter, her frown deepening. “And why didn’t you say anything before, Potter? While we were in the hospital wing?”

“I forgot,” Potter shrugs.

“Thanks a lot,” Draco drawls, crossing his arms, trying to regain some measure of self respect.

“I had some things on my mind, you ungrateful git!” Potter’s wand is in his hand, and McGonagall launches into action.

She hustles Potter into the hallway, sending him off to bed for a second time. Then, she conjures a bed for Draco, a small cot wedged between her desk and the wall. “You will sleep here tonight, Mr. Malfoy. I may be foolish to trust you after everything that you have brought down on us tonight, but Professor Dumbledore appears to have found your words sincere.” She pauses, surely remembering another man whom Dumbledore trusted implicitly, who betrayed him in the end.

“You _can_ trust me,” Draco says quietly. “Please believe me, Professor.”

The tired witch nods, and continues briskly as if there had been no interruption: “We will have to get you out of the castle. I imagine you are in grave danger, so you will not be able to remain at the school. In any case, classes will be cancelled after today’s events, and a great many students will be heading home.” She pauses again, closes her red-rimmed eyes momentarily, then continues. “After Professor Dumbledore’s funeral we will make alternate arrangements. Tonight, I want to keep you in my sights.” She punctuates her words by waving her wand around the room. She is setting up wards, alarms.

Her own bedchamber is footsteps away. Once she is finished with the wards, she goes inside and closes the door firmly behind her, not waiting for him to respond.

Draco sits down on the hastily conjured cot. It’s harder than a slab of stone. He lies on his back and stares at the shadows of flames dance across the stone ceiling. His mind should be abuzz with a million thoughts, his whole life flipped upside down in a single evening. But he thinks only of Ginny Weasley. He wonders where she is. He wants to speak with her, but he is afraid of what she will say to him. He is afraid she will never forgive him, especially since deep down, he knows she ought not to.

How many times had she urged him to talk with Dumbledore, to seek his help, to fully seek hers? Too many times. How differently it could have all ended if he’d only listened.


	11. The Funeral

**Chapter 11: The Funeral**

_Ginny_

Ginny Weasley feels like she’s been through the spin cycle of one of those Muggle washing machines that her father fiddles with in the garden shed. She feels crumpled and wrung dry. Her stomach hurts every time she thinks of Professor Dumbledore, of their last conversation together in his office.

She remembers him perfectly in the soft light of the circular room, the fire crackling, the small whirring noises of his magical artefact collection, the motes of ash and dust in the air. The Headmaster's face had been weary and lined, his voice tinged with exhaustion. Even so, she never expected him to falter, to fail. When he told her not to worry about Draco Malfoy, about Voldemort’s plans, she believed him implicitly and had allowed him to lift the weight off her shoulders.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” she says stupidly to Harry as they stand in a patch of sunlight. The rows of white chairs on the great lawn are filling up with all manner of witches and wizards. A delegation of Ministry officials is already seated, including the new Minister for Magic. She watches Fleur help Bill into a chair, and her stomach aches looking at her disfigured older brother. Tonks and Lupin sit nearby, and her parents are walking down the rows, heading towards the rest of the Order.

“Should we sit as well?” she asks Harry, squeezing his hand.

“Maybe in a moment.” His voice is still pinched with exhaustion.

“Oh, Harry,” she whispers. “Don’t lose hope. We need you to stay strong, now more than ever.”

He lifts his eyes to look at her face, and there is too much sadness in his expression to bear. “I trusted him, Ginny.”

“We all did,” she says.

Harry’s voice is calm and hollow. “He didn’t tell me everything. He never revealed the entire picture to anyone. He just held it all in his own mind, dolling out wisdom on a need to know basis. We all believed in him so completely, trusted that in the end, he would guide us. And now?”

She knows what he means. Even in the darkest moments, she’d never believed that Dumbledore could fall. When Dumbledore was alive, even when things were at their worst, she could trust that the darkness could not fully envelop their world.

And now he is dead, and worst of all, killed by a man he had trusted and defended for years. His failure to see Snape’s true nature has thrown Dumbledore’s whole character into question. He was not infallible. He was not all-knowing. He had been a regular wizard, like the rest of them. He could be fooled and killed, just like anybody else.

But she cannot allow her feelings to dishearten Harry further. “The Order is still strong, Harry. Hope is not lost.”

“I was wrong to focus my attention on Malfoy all year. Dumbledore was right about him. He couldn’t do it in the end. I should have known it would be Snape all along.”

Ginny bristles at the mention of Draco. “You were not wrong. He’s a Death Eater, just as you suspected.” She drops Harry’s hand and walks to great lawn to take her seat.

Everyone in the Order was shocked by what Draco had done, both by the Dark Mark burned into his arm at such a young age, and the fact that he’d renounced the Death Eaters in front of Dumbledore, that he’d switched sides. Now, they all regard him with wariness, with confusion, but they appear to accept him and to honour Dumbledore’s last wish, to offer him protection. They all blame Snape for Dumbledore’s death. Harry, especially, has pooled all of his hatred, his grief, into the Potion Master’s betrayal. But Ginny remembers that Draco was the one who let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts. She won’t forget so easily, and she won’t forgive.

She can see Ron and Hermione heading towards them. The white tomb gleams a short distance away. Ginny can hear Hagrid’s sobs a few rows down. She wipes her own eyes. The funeral has begun. The chairs are all occupied, every last one.

In spite of her best efforts, she cannot help but look around for the gleam of his pale hair. Is he at the funeral? Would he really be bold enough to show his face here, after what he’s done? She cannot see him.

Harry told her everything that transpired on the tower. He told her the morning after Dumbledore’s death, in the common room. There was something to do with Horcruxes, which Harry was vague about in her presence. He wouldn’t say exactly what the term meant, even though he clearly knew and the trio had been discussing it for some time. It hurt her that he trusted Ron and Hermione so much more than her, even though they were supposed to be close. What does it mean that Ginny is his girlfriend, when he can’t even confide in her fully?

She tried to shake it off, feeling guilty for succumbing to something as petty as jealousy amidst their time of mourning.

She did piece together Draco’s plan, the one he’d refused to tell her, the extent of what he’d done. Harry explained how he’d failed to kill Dumbledore, how he admitted, in the end, that he was no true Death Eater. She knows that he is currently hiding in McGonagall’s office, and that after the funeral, he will be taken to a safe house by the Order.

Ginny doesn’t know how to feel about it. Of course, he could never kill Dumbledore. She’d always known that about him; in her heart, she’d always seen his potential for goodness. What does it mean that he’s switched sides? Ginny doesn’t know, but she _does_ know that he could have spared the Headmaster’s life if only he’d seen made the decision sooner, if only he hadn’t been such a stubborn coward.

Whenever she thinks of it, her insides begin to roil with anger.

As soon as the service concludes, Ginny stands up and walks away from the crowd, needing space. She can hear Harry running to catch up with her.

“Ginny?” Harry is breathing quickly, running his hands through his messy hair. He pulls her into a private alcove. “Ginny,” he says again, taking her hand. His palm is sweaty. “I need to talk to you about something. About us.” He studies her face nervously before continuing, talking very low so that she has to lean in to hear. “These last weeks with you have been brilliant. They were some of the happiest moments I’ve ever had at Hogwarts.” He grins at her, but it's one of those lopsided, sad grins that lets her know the bad news is still coming. “I just...I think we need to break up for now. It’s too dangerous for us to be together, and I need to focus on what’s coming.” He takes a shaky breath. “Everything is going to change now, and I think it’s best if we’re not together. Not now.”

Ginny finds herself nodding as she looks up to face him. She is full of anger, but her anger has nothing to do with Harry. If anything, his words have taken some of the pressure off her chest, and she breathes a little easier. “You’re right, Harry. Of course, you’re right.” She squeezes his hand, and then lets it drop.

"For now," he repeats, catching and holding her gaze. "Not forever."

_Draco_

He stands in the shadows of the castle, off to the side where he won’t be seen. His heart beats quickly throughout the memorial service, and a terribly thick feeling coats his chest, making it difficult to draw breath. Draco forces himself to breathe deeply, and to push that thick feeling away, into the compartments in his mind. He breathes in, and slowly out. And he feels better.

Draco watches her on the way back from the funeral. Her eyes are red.

He hangs back in the shadows, watching Potter take her aside. He watches Potter’s mouth move, and wishes he could read lips. Ginny’s expression doesn’t change; her lips are turned down into a frown. She looks distracted.

He waits for their conversation to end. They melt back into the crowd, but they are no longer holding hands. Draco lingers behind them, in the shadows, out of sight. Potter catches up to Granger and Weasley and they hurry up the steps to the front doors.

Before Ginny can follow, he catches her arm. “Ginny, wait,” he whispers, pulling her off to one side, away from the mourners.

She twists away from him. Of course she does; he knew she would, he just hoped that maybe, somehow, his decision to stay in the castle and not leave with Snape would count for something.

“I have nothing to say to you,” she spits. When he doesn’t immediately respond, she keeps going, the words pouring hotly from her. “Do you think I don’t know what you did? Dumbledore is dead. It’s a miracle Katy Bell is still alive. And you’re the one who poisoned Ron. You nearly killed my brother.”

Draco flushes. He’d nearly forgotten about the wine, but of course she’s put the pieces together. “I didn’t mean for Weasley to drink that wine.”

“No, you’d meant for Professor Dumbledore to drink the wine. You’d meant to kill the greatest wizard of our time. And you did it, Draco. And don’t tell me you didn’t do it, that you didn’t cast the spell - ”

“I wasn’t going to say - ”

“Because you are responsible for his death just as much as Snape. _You_ organized it. _You_ lead the Death Eaters into the school. You may not have said the words, but in every other way, _you_ are the one who killed Albus Dumbledore.” She says it with finality, with venom. “And I will never forgive you for it. Never.” Her voice breaks, but her brown eyes are burning. She turns around before he can say anything.

Draco watches her hurry away from him and disappear into the castle, her red hair a beacon in the crowd.

He leans against the castle wall, scowling. He’s given up everything, and to what end? He has never felt so alone. The Slytherins have largely left the castle: Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle, Zabini and Nott. Pansy was surprised when his mother didn’t show up to take him home. She hugged him goodbye, and in spite of himself, he clung to that bit of warmth from Pansy, that last bit of his old self.

Now she is gone, they are all gone, and he feels like he belongs nowhere. He can’t even write a letter to mother for fear that it will be intercepted.

McGonagall is being nice enough, letting him stay at the castle and hinting that the Order of the Phoenix will keep him safe, but he knows he doesn’t belong. He knows it in his blood; he feels it in his bones, even as the Dark Mark on his forearm flashes an angry black. He would leave, but he has nowhere to go and nobody else to turn to.

Draco curses under his breath. The feeling of panic and fear bubbles up again, and he pushes it down, breathes through it. It’s Ginny’s fault; she manipulated him, then abandoned him. He wants to hate her for it, but instead he sinks down into the shadows of the stone alcove. He closes his eyes, and remembers the feel of her breath on his neck. He remembers her in the dungeons, in the darkness. He remembers the utter gentleness of her fingers tracing his Dark Mark.


	12. Grimmauld Place

**Chapter 12: Grimmauld Place**

_Draco_

They put him up in the top bedroom of the old Black house, which Draco had never been to until now; Walburga Black, his mother’s aunt and the last respected occupant of the home, died while he was still in nappies. Anyway, that whole side of the family was always pitied for their ill luck, with the oldest son prematurely dead and Sirius Black denouncing his parents and running away from home. He was later thrown into Azkaban for a crime he apparently did not commit and escaped after years of torment, only to be killed by his own cousin.

Draco frowns, considering for the first time that his own choices are leading him down a similar path.

The room allotted him has a film of dust on every surface and more than a few spiders, but it’s airy and uncluttered. There’s a large window that opens to the street below. The sounds of drunken brawls and screaming babies float up into his room in the evenings. He lies on the stiff bed and stares at the ceiling. His mind rolls over the same thoughts: What did Snape tell the Dark Lord? What did he tell Mother, and does Father know, and will they forgive him or is Draco effectively dead to them now? Will he ever see his room and his things again? Will every one of his friends abandon him now?

Draco turns over on his side, watching the shutters tremble in the evening breeze. The truth is, he doesn’t have any true friends, nobody whom he misses terribly, and nobody who’d stick their neck out for him. Except Ginny Weasley. Maybe that’s why he’s gone and thrown his life upside down. Even Ginny’s scorn and her anger is somehow more intimate, more real, than any of his so-called friendships.

Draco closes his eyes, listening to the rush of wind and the rumble of voices from below, feeling lonely and out of sorts.

A shrill voice booms from the darkness: _Mudblood filth and blood traitors sullying my house!_

His eyes shoot open. The cries of Mrs. Black ricochet off the wooden beams, and he can hear footsteps scurrying downstairs to pull the curtains shut. It means someone new has arrived.

Members of the Order of the Phoenix have continued to slip in and out of the house at all hours of the day. Draco learned early on that the Black residence had been protected by the Fidelius Charm, but with Dumbledore's death and Snape's true allegiance revealed, security has been greatly eroded. Draco doesn't understand why they are using the house at all, but apparently the charm is still holding up, albeit diluted between the Order's members. Mad Eye Moody had assured him that extra wards had been set up, extra precautions taken, and then he'd waved off his concerns as if he'd had enough of Draco's questions. Right. It's only his life on the line, after all. 

Draco has tried his best to remain invisible even though every one of them must know that he’s hidden up here. When McGonagall first brought him to Grimmauld Place three days ago, he was questioned by Moody and Kingsley Shacklebolt for two straight hours. Since then, nobody has asked anything of him. An old house elf brings him food, but he’s otherwise left alone. 

Still, without fully acknowledging why, he feels the need to check on every new arrival.

Draco pulls himself out of bed and steps into the dim corridor, lingering on the top landing. He looks down the stairwell to see several people crowding into the entrance way. He recognizes most of them. There’s Lupin, the werewolf professor who was sacked in third year, and a young woman with vivid green hair who must be his cousin Nymphadora; he’d heard she was a metamorphmagus. The elder Weasleys are there of course. Ginny is not among them.

He’s about to turn away when he hears his name. They’re talking about him, in hushed tones, at the foot of the staircase. He descends a few steps, softly, taking care not to make a sound.

“...unexpected, of course, but he did elect to stay at the castle.”

“Snape left him behind...”

“Do you think he’s a plant?”

“For Merlin’s sake, Remus, he’s just a boy...”

“He managed to let Death Eaters into the castle, Molly. Let’s not kid ourselves.”

Draco descends another stair, and another, his face hot. Before he fully realizes it, he’s out of the shadows and halfway down the staircase. The Weasleys and Lupin are facing each other, talking quickly. They stop when they see him.

“Draco dear,” says Mrs. Weasley, looking flustered.

Arthur Weasley turns to look at him. “Draco Malfoy,” he says. “Speak of the devil.” Their eyes lock for a moment. “You've grown up, son. You're the spitting image of your father,” he murmurs. There must be some shift in Draco’s expression because his features soften. “But we know that you are not like him, Draco.”

Draco scowls, backing away. “Don’t talk about my father,” he whispers. “I look like my father because I am his son. I’m _proud_ to be his son. Don’t ever presume otherwise.” He is breathing quickly, his cheeks burning. He needs to leave. He turns around and hurries back up the staircase, back up to his empty room.

“He still loves him so fiercely,” he hears Mrs. Weasley say, her voice ringing up the staircase.

Pity. He’s drowning in all their pity, laced with their mistrust. Draco rushes into his room and slams the door.

* * *

He spends his days wandering in and out of the disused rooms. In one room, he traces the Black family tree with his fingertips. There’s a similar one at Malfoy Manor. In fact, the Manor is similar in other ways. It has old portraits on the walls, the smell of old Wizarding pride entrenched in the wallpaper. But the Manor is sprawling and bright; this house has clearly gone to seed. The corridors are too narrow, the rare sliver of daylight muted by dust and darkness. The whole place reeks of disappointment.

Draco traces his fingers along the family lines, pausing at the marred, blackened space of Sirius Black’s name. Again, he dwells on the similarities between Sirius and himself. He walked away from his pureblood status, from his family’s values. But Sirius Black, if accounts were true, was never a true Black. He was always a blood traitor, always the black sheep of the family. Draco, though, had never stepped out of line before now.

“You’re more like Regulus, you know.”

Draco looks up with a start. Granger is lurking in the doorframe. He jerks away from the wallpaper and glares at her. Potter’s crony. “What do you want, Mudblood?”

She frowns and tugs at her bushy hair. “Really, Malfoy? Are you still using that kind of language? I thought you were on our side now?”

Draco frowns. “I’m not on any side,” he says. “And I just don’t like you.” He pauses, but his curiosity gets the better of him. “What do you mean by that, anyway? What do you know about Regulus Black?”

“He was Sirius’ brother, wasn’t he?” Granger doesn’t walk into the room, but lingers at the doorframe, twisting her appalling hair around one finger.

“I know that,” Draco says.

“He was known to be very proud of his family, of his _pure_ blood.” She says the word pure sarcastically, like it’s something stupid to be proud of. Of course she would think so.

Draco looks at her, waiting.

“Well, we found out recently that he’d switched sides in the end. Before he died. He tried to destroy something of Voldemort’s, something very important to him. Nobody knew what he had done, not even Sirius. But he was a hero in his own way.”

Draco doesn’t say anything. He didn’t know that. He was taught about Sirius of course, just as he was told about the other blood traitors in his family that had been subsequently disowned. Not worthy. “Maybe he wasn’t worthy of his family. Maybe nobody ever found out because he was ashamed,” he hears himself saying.

Granger grimaces, looking annoyed. “Nobody found out because he died. What he did cost him his life!” Granger looks stricken as soon as she says it. “I don’t mean that you’ll die too, Malfoy. I mean...I’m sure the Order is keeping you safe.”

Draco scowls at her, hating the rush of fear that prickles his skin. “Just go away,” he says lazily, trying to sound unaffected.

She’s about to leave when he stops her. “Wait, Granger. Who are you here with?”

She looks confused by the question. “Harry and Ron are with me. We’re just here for a few hours, and then we’re heading back to the Burrow for wedding preparations. We’re here for the Order,” she clarifies, but uncertainly, like she’s still not comfortable with revealing too much in front him, still unsure of his allegiances. “Look, Malfoy. I don’t understand why you did what you did, when you don’t seem to have changed at all. I mean, when I heard, I thought maybe you’d...” She makes a vague gesture with her hand.

Draco’s heart beats faster. He feels uneasy, and lost. “Look,” he says. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just...old habits. I guess we are on the same side now.”

She nods curtly. “Ron still thinks you’re a slimy git, by the way.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Draco replies. He hesitates, then asks “What wedding?” He almost doesn’t ask; he hates how little he knows, how little power he has here, but his curiosity gets the better of him.

“Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour. You remember Fleur? From the Triwizard Tournament?”

Draco shrugs, looking back at the faded family tree. “And the...other Weasleys?” He asks quietly. “They’re not here?”

Granger obviously doesn’t know what he’s getting at. “Just Ron,” she says. She studies him a moment, curious. Then she’s gone, and he’s alone in the room, with the family tree winding all around him like a weed.

* * *

_Ginny_

“Can I come with you?” she asks her mother.

Molly Weasley is tidying the kitchen with a wave of her wand, the breakfast dishes floating from the table into the soapy sink. “I don’t know why you’d want to go Ginny,” she says, a little plaintive.

“Ron is going.”

“I know, and I’m not altogether happy about that either.” Molly Weasley stops waving her wand, and pauses to look Ginny in the eye. “All right, if you want, you can come along. I don’t want you in the meeting, though. That’s just for the Order.”

“Ok, mum.”

“Now, Ginny, I mean it.” She comes forward and takes Ginny’s two hands in her own. Her palms are damp and warm. “You know, I wish this wasn’t something that you had to deal with now. You should be thinking about school, about friends and boys,” she grins at her, and Ginny looks away. “I just don’t want you to miss out on your childhood, Ginny. That’s all. You’re fifteen! Just hold on a bit to your youth, sweetheart. You’ll have your whole life to be an adult.”

Ginny squeezes her mother’s hands, not really listening. She hasn’t seen Draco since the funeral, and she’s still livid, still so angry with him. But if she’s honest, she also can’t stop thinking about him. It’s all very... complicated. She just wants to see him once, see what he’s like now that he’s been holed up in Grimmauld Place for several days. 

Her mother is still talking, but Ginny is feeling impatient. “Yes, mum, all right,” she says, and removes her hands.

“You’re not to join the meeting, Ginny. You can wait for us in the other room. Maybe talk to the Malfoy boy, he seems a bit lonely.”

“Wait, what did you say?” Ginny’s focus swings back on her mother, but now Harry and Ron are pounding down the stairs, and Mrs. Weasley turns away to meet them.

They gather outside the Burrow. She can't Apparate by herself and isn't privy to the location of Grimmauld Place, so she has to side-along with her mother. She feels the squeeze of Apparation, and all at once she's on the doorstep of Grimmauld Place.

She waits for her parents to hurry inside, and then Ron, Harry, and Hermione. She lingers behind them, and then enters the musty entryway. She barely catches Harry’s voice floating out from the kitchen, greeting whoever is inside, before her mother firmly shuts the door in her face. Some things have shifted since Dumbledore’s death, but Ginny is still seen as a child, still barred from the Order’s meetings. Normally, she’d be cross about it, but today her mind is elsewhere.

She begins to climb the old staircase, which sighs beneath her footfalls. She doesn’t know where he is, but assumes it’s one of the bedrooms on the top floor where Harry slept last year.

She reaches the top of the landing and walks up to a wooden door, slightly ajar. Ginny pushes it open, steps quietly inside.

He’s facing the open window, his shoulders drawn back in a rigid way that makes her think he knows she’s coming. “Malfoy?” she says. Her hands move to door behind her, and she pushes it shut with a soft click.

He turns around. He’s wearing expensive robes, black and green, and they bring out his grey eyes and the pallor of his skin. He looks at least as bad as he did in those last weeks of school, before...before it all happened. _Before he brought Death Eaters in to the castle_ , Ginny’s mind supplies, unwilling to let her soften the truth of his actions. But when she looks into his tired grey eyes, her resolve begins to crack.

“Weasley,” he says. “Ginny.” His expression is hard to read. His mouth is turned down into a harsh line, his face grim and angular, but eyes are soft.

Without fully meaning to, Ginny reaches out to touch him. He intercepts her hand, takes it in his own, and he draws her closer. “I was trying to decide what to say to you. You know, I’ve been waiting for you to come here. I didn’t know if you would, but in case you did, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I would say to you.” His voice is hoarse and a bit desperate, so unlike his usual tone.

“What did you decide?” she asks.

“I want you to know that I didn’t do this for you,” he says quietly. “But I also don’t know if I could have done it without you. I know you blame me for Dumbledore’s death, and for everything else that happened that night, and you’re not wrong.” He leans down, and his lips linger next to hers. “But I’m sorry for what I did. And...” his breath hitches, and Ginny’s heart is pounding in her ears, “And if you can’t forgive me, I don’t know how I’ll get through this alone.”

Ginny wants very much to close the distance between them, and it takes all her resolve to push him away, her palm flat on his chest. “Why didn’t you listen to me earlier?” she whispers. “How could you put us all in danger like that?”

He takes a step back, running an agitated hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know, Ginny. I thought maybe it would feel right once it happened; I thought maybe I could just do this one thing, and it would make everything else okay. Everyone was counting on me. My parents were counting on me.” He looks up at her. “I couldn’t do it, though. You were right about that.”

“Of course I was right,” Ginny scoffs.

He begins to pace the room, growing more frenetic. “And I know this is not an excuse, but I didn’t know so many of them would be there. I was so focused on Dumbledore and on my task, I just didn’t think about it until suddenly they were all there, Yaxley and the Carrows and that horrid werewolf.” He stops pacing, looks up at her.

There’s another crack in her resolve, and Ginny struggles to call up her anger. “I’ve missed you,” she admits instead.

He’s breathing fast. They both are. Then he closes the distance between them in two long strides, and his kiss is hard and desperate. His lips trail down her jawline to her neck, down to her collarbone. “These freckles,” he breathes, like he’s going to devour each one of them.

Ginny half-laughs, half-gasps against him, feeling hot all over.

When she opens her eyes to look at him, his pupils are wide, his chest rising and falling. She grabs his robes, bunching them in a fist, and pulls him into her, finding his mouth with her own. Draco growls against her lips. They stumble backwards onto his bed. He’s on top of her then, and all around her, and Ginny’s fingers fumble up under his robes to touch his bare skin, inching up his bare back. She pushes his robes up clumsily, and he leans back, pulling them over his head and throwing them on the floor. She runs her hands up and down his chest, and he bends down to find her mouth.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he whispers onto her parted lips.


	13. Burning

**Chapter 13: Burning**

_Draco_

He finds her mouth, and he feels himself grow hard. His mind spins with the taste of her, the heat of her body against his. Her hand is flat against his chest, and he is on top of her on the old, rickety bed, the sagging mattress. Her brown eyes are dark with desire.

He takes off her jumper, her t-shirt. Her bra is pale yellow, her freckles run down her chest and brush the ivory swell of her breasts. He unhooks the bra, and pulls it away, discards it on the floor.

He freezes for a moment, staring at her bare breasts, the nipples pink and peaked in the cool air. He brings his face down to her chest, inhales her, sucks and nips gently. Ginny is groaning, her back arching. She grips his shoulders, forcing him to face her.

“Tell me you want me,” she whispers.

“I want you,” he says hoarsely. His thoughts are beginning to blur around the edges.

Ginny pauses for a beat, and something flickers in her expression. “Tell me you love me. Tell me you love me, Draco.”

He stares into her dark eyes, shocked, his heart pounding, his breathing erratic. If he’s ever loved anyone, it has to be her. He bends down and catches her lower lip in his teeth. He’s grinding against her stomach.

She lifts her hips. “Don’t stop,” she hisses. “I want this.”

“I want you,” he breathes against her cheek, his face hot against hers.

Her hands search for his trousers, unfastening them, pulling them down.

His own hands fumble with her jeans, trying to slide them past her hips. Things are moving too quickly. In his haze, he forces himself to slow down, forces his scrambling fingers to still. “Wait. Are you a...I mean, have you ever...?”

“Just, uh, hurry!” She growls. She pushes up against him in frustration, opening her knees and hooking one leg over his hip to draw him closer.

Draco groans, bracing himself with his arms on either side of her head, kissing and tasting every inch of her hot skin, pressing his body into hers.

A sudden, searing pain ripples up his arm. It brings him back to sharp focus.

He jerks away, jumps up from the bed, grabbing his arm with his other hand.

“What? What’s happening?” Ginny sits up quickly. She scrambles behind him, places a hand on his bare shoulder, but he can barely feel it for the pain pulsing up and down his left arm.

Draco looks at the Dark Mark. It looks the same, inky and raw against his pale skin. But it _burns_. He can feel it pulsing, throbbing. He hisses, closing his eyes.

“What is it?” she asks again.

He turns to look at her, and her expression reflects his own horror. “It hurts.” He closes his eyes, tries to temper the pain. “I think he’s angry with me.”

Ginny is on her feet, grabbing her yellow bra off the floor. Draco blinks. The colours in the room seem brighter than usual: her red hair, the yellow cotton against her skin, goose bumps erupting all down her milky arm. He breathes deeply, and the pain begins to fade.

Ginny pulls on her jumper. He feels for his shirt, clutches it in his right hand but feels too woozy to put it on. “It’s going away,” he whispers.

“We have to tell someone,” she says.

Draco begins to shake his head, but she kneels in front of him, puts her hands on both his cheeks and draws his face up to look into her eyes. “You’re going to listen to me, Draco. This time, you’re going to listen to me. You’re not doing this on your own again.”

He releases a breath he’s been holding and slowly nods.

She drops her hands to her lap.

He looks down at the top of her head, at the curve of her shoulder brushed with faint freckles, and a wave of affection comes over him. “Hey,” he says quietly. “I do...” his voice wavers, his momentary courage leaving him, but he holds on to it. “I do love you.”

“Oh, you don’t have to say that. It was just the heat of the moment. We barely even know each other that way. I shouldn’t have said that.” She sounds embarrassed.

“But I do,” he insists. He’s never said it before; he’s never felt it before, like a clean, solid white light piercing across the darkness of his life.

She moves to sit beside him on the bed, wrapping her arms around his bare shoulders, pressing her face against his chest. “I love you too,” she breaths against his skin.

He smiles, gathers her into him. He finds her lips and kisses her gently. “Really?” he whispers against her lips, pulling away to look at her wide brown eyes.

“Yeah, really. I don’t always like you, Draco. But I think I might be falling in love with you.”

They sit quietly for an indefinite moment. Noise floats in from the open window, disembodied voices and a burst of music, high-pitched children’s laughter. His arm still aches, a low, persistent throb. His heart still thuds dully in his chest, unable to settle down.

Downstairs, they hear the creak of the kitchen door, and footsteps stomping into the foyer.

“Come on,” she says, standing up. “Let’s go talk to them.”

“You’ll come with me?” he asks.

She helps him put his arm through the shirt, and begins to loop the buttons back through their holes. “Of course I will.”

* * *

_Ginny_

“I don’t understand why you were up there with him in the first place.” Ron’s voice is plaintive.

Ginny wants to smack him upside the head. “I was just checking up on him. He’s lonely up there, alone in his room all day. He’s been here for days with no one to talk to.”

“Yeah, but so what? He’s a git, innit? What’s there to talk about anyway?”

“Mum told me to keep him company!” Ginny hopes the hotness in her cheeks will be interpreted as anger.

Draco is in the kitchen with Moody, Lupin, Tonks and her parents. The others were shuffled out and told to wait in the foyer. Ginny tried to stay with Draco, to follow him into the kitchen, but her own protests were lost in the more vociferous ones from Harry and Hermione. Maybe she should have pushed harder, fought harder to keep her word and stay with him. But it would look strange, wouldn’t it?

Draco’s grey eyes held hers, but he said nothing as the door shut in her face for the second time that afternoon.

Harry is pacing the outer hall, frustrated. “Do you think he’s keeping something from us?” he demands, not for the first time. “I should be in there. I don’t see how this is any different from the Order meetings.”

Ginny has quit answering. She’s already told them what happened, mostly. Omitting some key details. She brings her hand to her mouth, chews a fingernail. She catches Hermione’s sideways glance.

“You okay, Ginny?” she asks.

“Yeah. Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

The other girl seems to be eyeing her curiously. Ginny shrugs. She tries to catch the drift of voices from the kitchen, but they are too muffled.

When she Draco came downstairs, his fingers were almost brushing her hand. She saw Harry and Ron at the foot of the stairs, and she hurried ahead, her face burning.

He followed. Ginny did the talking. She burst into the kitchen and told them about Draco’s Dark Mark burning. He stood behind her, heat coming off of him. Her heart was pounding the whole time.

She had been ushered out before she could say much more, before she could think clearly.

She’d told him she loved him. She’d been about to have sex with him, for Merlin’s sake, but she still couldn’t fully grasp his hand, couldn’t come clean in front of Ron, Harry and Hermione. Ginny feels the swirls of shame in the pit of her stomach.

She brushes past Ron to step outside. It’s late afternoon. They sky is grey, but it’s not raining yet. She can smell lightning in the air. There’s a Muggle woman in an adjacent doorway, in her dressing gown, smoking a cigarette. The street is otherwise deserted.

Ginny paces up and down the front lawn, breathing in the fresh air, looking at the grey clouds. She starts when she sees Hermione on the doorstep.

“Is everything alright, Ginny?” she asks, coming down the steps to meet her.

“Oh yeah. I’m fine. I was just spooked when Dra – when Malfoy’s arm started hurting.” She shoves her hands in her pockets, frowning. She feels under interrogation, and she resents Hermione for coming out here. Where is Draco, anyway?

Hermione takes a few steps towards Ginny, looks at her with that curious quirk to her lips. “I talked with Malfoy the other day. You know, he hardly seems to have changed.”

“Oh?”

“He called me a Mudblood.” 

“He did?” her heart sinks.

“I mean, I think he didn’t mean it as much as before. I don’t know, Ginny. I can’t figure him out. I don’t understand why he switched sides. He seems to be just as prejudiced and rude as he ever was. Maybe he couldn’t cast the killing curse, but why didn’t he run with the Death Eaters? Why did he stay behind?” She’s frowning, like Ginny holds the answer.

“Well, don’t ask me,” she says.

But Hermione keeps looking at her like she knows something. Like she _knows_. Ginny feels the same squirm of guilt in her stomach. Why can’t she just tell Hermione the truth? Ginny wets her lips, forming the words, but can’t utter them. She just looks at Hermione, ashamed of what the older girl might say. She’ll think Ginny’s being stupid, that Malfoy’s got her fooled, that he’s using her.

But no. He’s changed, or at least he’s changing. He came here, didn’t he? He didn’t follow Snape, he held back. That must have taken a lot of guts.

But he can’t hold her hand. Or maybe she can’t hold his.

Ginny feels irritation run up and down her spine. She doesn’t need to discuss this now, not with Hermione Granger, not while Draco is alone in the kitchen with his Dark Mark burning. “I don’t know, Hermione. Maybe they’re finished? Let’s just go inside.” Ginny pushes past her, back into the dimness of Grimmauld Place.

She walks through the entrance just as Mad Eye clomps through the kitchen door, followed by Tonks and Lupin, then her parents. Finally, Draco trails behind them. He catches her eyes, then looks down. He looks sad. He looks alone.

“Are you alright?” she asks in a small voice. Still, it seems too loud. It feels like everyone turns to look at her. She can feel her mother’s eyes, her piercing stare. She looks down at her feet.

“I’m fine,” says Draco. He turns around and stomps up the staircase.

“We should go,” says her mother. “Come on Ginny.”

“Why just me?” Ginny demands.

“Not just you, honey. I mean all of us, of course. Ron? Harry? Hermione, you too. Come on. Before it gets dark.”

“What did he say about the Dark Mark? Do you know why it’s burning like that?” Ginny asks her mother as they huddle together on the front lawn.

“Don’t you worry about it, Ginny. It’s nothing to do with you. Dark Marks are terrible things. You just don’t worry about it, Ginny.”

There’s a hook in her stomach that yanks her forward into the nauseating ether, and abruptly she’s in a field outside the Burrow. The sky is darkening to dusk.


	14. Frustration

**Chapter 14: Frustration**

_Draco_

From the bedroom window, Draco watches her disappear in whirl. He glances at a Muggle woman across the street, who is leaning against her doorframe with a cigarette hanging from her lips. She doesn’t seem aware that a group of people just vanished off the front lawn. The Muggles can’t see the house, of course. Nobody can. 

The woman tosses her cigarette on the stoop and grinds it with her heel. She pulls her ratty dressing gown tighter and vanishes into the gaping darkness of her doorway. Thick drops of rain begin to smatter the window.

Draco frowns. How did the Blacks stand living here among the Muggles? He much prefers the seclusion of the Manor. A movement catches his eye; a blur at the edge of the woman’s lawn, behind a badly-maintained ornamental bush. Draco stares, but the lawn is bare, the bush shuddering in the rain. He shakes his head, feeling uneasy.

Draco sits down on the bed. It’s ruffled from earlier, and he looks away. The burst of feeling he’d felt that afternoon seems dampened by everything that followed.

They’d come down the stairs, and her fingers had slipped from his grasp, his own surety waning when he saw the upturned faces of the Order members. She belongs with them, and he’s an outsider awash in suspicion.

He rolls up his sleeve and stares at the Dark Mark, still pulsing, but dimly now.

In the kitchen, there was a barrage of questions from Moody. Did he contact his parents? Did he send any owls? Did he talk to anyone outside the Order?

Moody knows as well as Draco that it’s not possible to send owls from a protected location, and that he hasn’t left this musty house for days. But they don’t trust him. They don’t understand why his arm would hurt now. Snape knew about his betrayal when he ran from the castle, so he would have told the Dark Lord that same night. Why would the Dark Lord be angry with him now, more than a full week after the Headmaster’s death? 

Maybe it’s something else. Maybe something has happened to his parents. Draco puts his head in his hands, trying to get his bearings.

There’s a knock at his door, and before Draco can say anything, Remus Lupin enters. He knew they weren’t finished with him. He could tell they just wanted to talk amongst themselves before continuing to question him. And now they’ve sent the werewolf.

“How are you doing, Draco?” he says calmly, closing the door and leaning against it.

Draco gets up from the bed. “My arm’s fine now.”

“It’s hard to tell what it means right now, but it’s clear he’s angry with you.”

“How do you know?” Draco demands. There’s a small chance it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was a random pain. The Dark Mark seems to have a mind of its own.

Lupin’s lips pull against his teeth. “Snape told us how it feels, how it works. When Voldemort gets a particular surge of emotion he directs it through the Dark Mark.”

“Well, maybe he’s just angry for some other reason. Maybe all of the Death Eaters felt it.”

“You could be right,” says Lupin, but he sounds unconvinced.

“Besides, don’t you get that Professor Snape was a double-agent all along?” Draco adds. “He might have been lying about everything, feeding you false information.”

Lupin’s placid expression tightens. There’s suddenly raw anger in his eyes, and Draco remembers that the man, as ramshackle as he looks, is a monster.

As soon as the thought flits across his brain, Draco looks down at his feet. He feels an unexpected stab of guilt. It’s Ginny’s voice he hears in his mind. She likes the werewolf. And she’s right, he isn’t a _monster_. Not fully, anyway. Fenrir Greyback is a monster; Draco has enough sense to see the difference between the two werewolves.

“I want you tell me if it hurts again, Draco. That’s very important. Will you do that?”

“Yeah,” he says dully. Before Lupin can leave, he stops him. “How long will I need to stay here?”

Lupin frowns. “You know you can’t leave Grimmauld Place, Draco. This is the only safe place for you right now. If you leave, Voldemort will locate you through the Mark. Your life will be in danger.”

“But how long will this last?” Draco persists. The room in the Black house had seemed like a lifeline when he was full of panic and adrenaline and had nowhere else to run. Now that the urgency had subsided, the days are stretching longer. “I need to contact my parents.”

“You can’t,” the werewolf says simply.

“Just my mother, then. I need to make sure she’s not in any danger. The Headmaster promised me he could protect her as well.”

“Ah,” Lupin sighed, “Well, I am not sure that Narcissa Malfoy wants or needs our protection.”

“You don’t know that! She could be in trouble; she could’ve been punished for what I’ve done.” His voice breaks at the thought, his heart beginning to pound hard again. He’s thought about this possibility from every angle, tried to gauge whether or not Mother would be blamed or harmed. She is alone now, with his father in prison and Draco confined to the Black House. He didn’t fully realize how much he’d abandoned her in that moment when he’d refused to follow Snape.

“It’s impossible, Draco,” Lupin repeats. “You can’t leave this house, not yet.”

“Can you send an owl for me?” he asks.

“It could be intercepted. We have reason to believe Malfoy Manor is being used to house Voldemort’s servants; perhaps even Voldemort himself.”

Draco feels the blood rushing to his face. “But that’s even worse! Then she could be in real danger! I have to find out. I won’t put anything incriminating in the letter. I’ll write it in a way that only she will understand.”

But the werewolf is shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Draco. It’s too dangerous right now.” He does sound apologetic. His voice is measured and calm. Draco has an urge to whip out his wand and hex the man.

He’s trapped here while Death Eaters are swarming all over his home. He pictures the Dark Lord’s great snake slithering across his sitting room. His frustration bubbles up and over, and he kicks the old desk in the corner. It bounces and hits the wall. This may as well be a prison cell.

Lupin watches him mildly. “I’m sorry, Draco,” he says again. “We’ll talk more later.” He reaches into this robes and pulls out a bar of chocolate. “Here, eat this. I find it helps.”

Draco stares at the chocolate and makes no move to take it. The werewolf places it on the desk. “Come to me if you feel any change in your arm,” he says, and then he leaves.

Draco watches the door shut. He feels anger pulsing through him, stupid futile anger. Draco kicks the desk again, harder, but it just bounces uselessly against the wall.

The chocolate bar falls to the floor.

* * *

Ginny

Ginny is itching to get back to Grimmauld Place, but two days have elapsed with no opportunity. Bill and Fleur are arriving at the end of the week, and suddenly talk of their wedding is overshadowing everything else. Or maybe they are all just using wedding talk as an excuse to push Ginny out of more pertinent discussions.

Her parents have certainly blocked any inquiries about the Order, or any new information about Voldemort or Draco, or even goings-on at the Ministry of Magic. Harry, Ron and Hermione are no better. They huddle together and stop talking when she approaches, changing the subject. She is sick to death of it. There is no one on her side, nobody who is willing to take her seriously enough to include her. At this rate, the Daily Prophet is her only source of information. And there’s nothing but bad news there: more Muggle attacks, more vague references to Death Eater activity. An outbreak in Azkaban; Death Eaters on the loose. Ginny wonders if Draco’s father is free now. The thought unsettles her.

It’s a bright, breezy day and she’s taken her broom out to chase Fred’s old Snitch around the patch of worn grass behind the Borrow. Its wings are bent after a decade of use, so it’s an easy target. After a little while, the boys stumble out in to the sunshine and join her for a quick scrimmage. Hermione sits off to the side of the field, reading a book.

When they all get tired, her mum brings out a jug of lemonade and they collapse onto the grass and turn their faces towards the sun. Ginny watches a garden gnome scamper across the vegetable patch and dive behind her father’s shed. It would be an idyllic day if her mind wasn’t constantly turning elsewhere. What is Draco doing? Pacing around his dim little room? Staring out the window? Is his arm burning? Is he worried?

Harry is first to pull himself up, off the grass. “Well, I’d better head inside,” he says. He shoots her an awkward, longing look which she ignores. The twins and Ron follow him into the house, but Ginny stays on the grass with Hermione, who puts down her book long enough to chat with her.

“Have you heard anything about the Azkaban breakout?” Ginny asks.

“Not really. You know they don’t tell me anything.”

“They tell you more than me.” Ginny doesn’t try to hide her irritation, but Hermione just shrugs.

They’re quiet for a beat before Hermione speaks again. “I wonder how Malfoy is doing.”

Ginny doesn’t dare meet her eyes, rolling the grass between her fingers. “I’m sure he’s fine. He’s in a safe place. I hope his arm is all right now. I wish I knew why it started to burn in the first place, what it could mean.”

“You seem worried about him,” says Hermione.

“I’m not!” Ginny says, looking up, alarmed. Hermione frowns at her. “I mean...I’m curious and...yeah maybe I don’t want him to get hurt or anything. He did switch sides; he’s fighting with us now, isn’t he?”

Hermione’s frown deepens. “I wouldn’t say he’s fighting anybody. He’s just hiding out, using the Order’s protection because he’s scared for his life.”

“Because he switched sides,” Ginny persists.

“Maybe he was just scared because he didn’t fulfill his mission. He didn’t do what he was supposed to do on the tower that night, and maybe he was afraid of punishment, and that’s why he refused to go with Snape.” 

“That’s not what happened. That’s not what Harry said.”

“Ginny! He led Death Eaters into the castle! He’s the one who’s responsible for Professor Dumbledore’s death! How can you defend him?”

“I’m not defending him!”

“I think you obviously are!” Suddenly, they’re both standing, the lemonade forgotten at their feet.

Ginny feels something between panic and anger coursing through her. “I’ve just decided to give him a chance,” she says, trying to calm down. “Maybe he’s changed or... Maybe he’s had a change of heart.”

Hermione huffs like it’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard. “He called me a Mudblood the last time I spoke to him, and he looked at me like he’s always looked at me, like I’m worthless, like I’m dirt.”

Ginny doesn’t know how to respond to that.

Hermione is staring at her like she wants to say something else, but isn’t sure how. Ginny hopes she doesn’t say anything at all. She makes a move to go back into the house, but Hermione grabs her arm to hold her back. “What’s going on between you and Malfoy, Ginny? I know something’s going on,” she says even before Ginny can protest. “You’re suddenly all worried about him, talking about him like he’s not _Draco Malfoy_ , like he’s some kind of decent human being and not an entitled bully who has set out to make Harry’s life miserable since first year.”

Ginny swallows. She can continue to deny it, but maybe there’s no point in doing so any longer. There’s something between her and Draco and it’s just getting bigger and harder to back away from. It’s not something that she can keep lying about. “I like him, Hermione,” she says quietly.

The other girl stares at her. “What does that mean, you like him?”

Ginny tries to meet her eyes, to find the courage to give voice to some of the things that have been happening over these months. But she can’t quite do it. “He’s not so bad,” she says lamely.

Hermione shakes her head. “He looks at you like...I don’t know. He stares at you sometimes. And when the two of you came down the stairs together the other day, there was something there. Something between you. I don’t know what it is.”

“Yes, fine! There’s something. I don’t know, Hermione. I really _like_ him,” she says helplessly.

“What do you mean you like him?”

Ginny feels like they’re talking in circles. “I kissed him. We kissed. I want to be with him, I think.”

Hermione’s eyes have widened in shock. Whatever she’d been expecting, this was not it. “You kissed him? You kissed _Malfoy_?” she shakes her head in disbelief. “What about Harry?”

“Harry? We’re broken up.”

“But not forever. I thought it was only temporary, until it’s safer to...I don’t know. Don’t you love him, Ginny?”

Ginny grimaces. “Yeah, of course I love Harry. I just, I don’t know if I love him like that.”

“But you love _Draco Malfoy_ like that?” 

“No, not like that! I mean, maybe...I don’t know, Hermione.” Ginny runs her hands over her face, her eyes stinging. She wishes she could Apparate herself out of this conversation.

There is a moment of silence between them, Hermione’s brow furrows like she’s trying to process a particularly difficult Arithmancy equation that just won’t add up.

“Look, Hermione,” says Ginny, pulling herself up a bit. “I didn’t plan on any of this, obviously, but I have these feelings. I’ve seen a side of Draco that you haven’t seen.”

Hermione scoffs, and Ginny ignores her.

“It’s not even that. I’m not saying he’s some kind of saint. He’s a prat, sure. But I like him. I’m not exactly a saint, either.” She tilts her chin up.

“Ginny....” Hermione sighs, shaking her head. “You’re worth a thousand Malfoys. You’ve got so much goodness in you, Ginny. You shouldn’t trust him. I just know he still holds his prejudiced ideas, but he’s nothing if not self-preserving. He’s a Slytherin, remember? What if he’s just using you?”

“He’s not using me.”

“How do you know?” Hermione demands. “You’re better than him. Malfoy is borderline evil. He made the _choice_ to become a Death Eater. He worships his father, and Lucius Malfoy is dangerous. He’s the reason you were possessed by Tom Riddle’s diary in your first year at Hogwarts. He could have gotten any one of us killed! And judging by Malfoy’s attitude at the time, he would have only been too happy to see us dead.”

The mention of the diary makes her heart beat faster. The name Tom Riddle echoes around in her brain. “Oh, Merlin...” Ginny whispers, running her hands through her hair. The old fears dredge themselves up. What if Hermione’s right and she’s just falling for Malfoy because there’s something wrong with her. What if there’s a shard of evil in her heart that Tom Riddle placed there when she was eleven years old; what if she doesn’t know the difference between good and evil anymore? “I don’t know Hermione,” Ginny whispers, sinking down into the grass again. “What if you’re right? What if I only like him because he reminds me of...” She doesn’t even want to say it. It’s too horrible.

Hermione’s eyes widen. “Oh, no, Ginny. That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t implying anything like that.” There is an awkward silence between them. Hermione looks towards the Burrow. “Harry loves you. I can see how much he loves you, Ginny. And he’s _all_ good.”

“Yeah,” Ginny whispers. She feels beaten down, like she barely has any energy left to stand up and go inside for dinner. “You’re right, Hermione. It’s not Harry. It’s me. There’s something wrong with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the lovely comments and kudos!


	15. Damaged

_Ginny_

They stay outside for another hour, talking until the sunshine begins to wane and Ron is shouting at them from the doorway to come inside for dinner. Hermione agrees that it’s best to keep this thing with Malfoy between them for now. Ginny agrees that it’s best to end it.

She walks into the house behind the other girl feeling exhausted. Everything Hermione said makes sense. The issue of trust aside, there’s the fact that they don’t even really know each other.

“What can you possibly have in common?” Hermione had asked her. “Everything you believe is the opposite of what he believes. How can he claim to have feelings for you when he doesn’t even know anything about you?”

What could Ginny say? That it’s something she feels deep in her gut when he’s standing in front of her? That she can’t stop replaying his kisses, or the heat of his body, or his hands running possessively over her skin? But that’s not a relationship. That’s just hormones.

Ginny places the empty lemonade jug on the kitchen counter and sits down to dinner.

“Took you long enough to come inside,” mutters Ron.

“Oh Ron, you let them have their girl talk,” her mother fusses, piling mashed potatoes onto his plate. She smiles at Ginny and plops a spoonful of potatoes onto her plate. “It’s nice to have another girl in the house, isn’t it Ginny?”

Ginny is saved a response when Fred flicks a gob of mashed potatoes at Ron. His aim is high, and it lands squarely on her father’s lapel. The dinner erupts into chaos.

She doesn’t sleep well that night. The next morning she wakes up determined to get to Grimmauld Place as soon as possible. If she’s going to end things with Draco, she’s got to do it quickly or else the waiting will drive her crazy.

______

Another two days crawl by, but then one evening her father is heading to Grimmauld Place to speak with Remus, who’s been spending most of his days at the old house to keep watch over Draco. Ginny has to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to come along, but in the end she sways her mother by painting a picture of a lonely Draco Malfoy, desperate for some company. Ron opens his mouth, no doubt to say something nasty about Draco, but Hermione shoos him and Harry out of the room. She gives Ginny a meaningful look before heading up the stairs.

She follows her father outside and loops her arm around his. They Dissapparate with a crack, and arrive at Grimmauld Place just as the sun is kissing the tips of clouds. The air smells wet and earthy, and the grand, old house looks somehow even more decrepit in the fading light.

Her father disappears into the kitchen with Remus, and Ginny walks up the stairs. She can see Draco’s pale face peering down at her through the open door. 

“Hi,” she whispers when she makes it inside his room. The lights are off, and the room looks smaller in the dimness.

Draco takes a step towards her and lifts her into his arms. “Ginny,” he sighs into her hair. “I didn’t know you were coming today. I’ve missed you like mad.”

She’s surprised by the openness of this statement, but maybe being alone and disoriented in this house has torn down some of his walls. Ginny can’t help but to draw her arms around his neck, breathing him in for a moment. But then Hermione’s stern look filters into her mind, and she pushes him gently away. “I need to talk to you.”

“Maybe later,” he murmurs, his lips running down her neck, his hands on her hips drawing her closer.

“Wait.” She pushes him away more firmly. “Hermione knows about us.”

“Oh.” Draco shrugs. He looks out the window. “That’s fine. Is that a problem? It’s not a problem for me.” There’s a challenge in his voice. “Are you ashamed? Is that why you look so upset?”

Ginny frowns. She thought she had hidden her feelings pretty well, but apparently not. “No, Draco.” She begins to pace, unable to look at him as she recites the words she’d planned in her mind over the last few days. “We need to talk about us. I don’t think our relationship is healthy.”

His expression grows colder, the warmth seeping away. “You think so, or Granger thinks so?”

She ignores the question. “We don’t even know each other, really, if you think about it.”

“How can you say that?” Draco takes a jerky step back, hitting the wall behind him.

Ginny puts her hands on his arm to steady him. He won’t look at her face either, his eyes wavering somewhere above her head. He looks worn and tired, so different from the arrogant, entitled Slytherin from school, flanked by his cronies. “You’re going through some kind of identity crisis,” she tells him.

Draco scowls, looks away. “No I’m not. It’s not that simple.”

Ginny tries a different tactic. “You said you loved me.” She can see his face growing strangely blank, but she pushes ahead. “What exactly is it that you love about me, Draco? You don’t know anything about me. You think I’m pretty, I bet. Maybe I’m good to snog now and again.”

“I do think that, yes.” He grins.

“Do you know what I like to do for fun? Do you know who my friends are, or my favourite band, or my Quidditch team?”

“It’s got to be the Harpies, right?”

“Stop it, I’m serious. You know I’m right. We don’t even know each other. We’d never even spoken before that night in the dungeons.”

Draco looks down at her with a rueful smile, his blond hair falling into his eyes. “There was that time you got me with a Bat-Bogey hex last year. Couldn’t get rid of it for hours.”

Ginny grins, but then the circumstances of that hex come to mind, and she feels terribly unhappy again. It happened when Umbridge held them all hostage, and Draco had been a different person in her eyes. He’d bullied them all mercilessly as leader of the Inquisitorial Squad. Hermione was right. How much could a person change, really, in such a short time? He’s watching her carefully, his hands back on her arms as if to hold her close by, unwilling to let her go.

“You know what I think?” She says slowly. “I think the reason you think you love me is because I was there when you needed someone like me, when you couldn’t reach out to anyone else. I think you’ve just confused relief and attraction with … something stronger.”

His gaze has closed down again, and he drops his arms and looks away towards the window. “What about you, then?” he asks. “Have you got an identity crisis as well?”

“I’m…damaged.”

Draco scoffs.

“No, I’m serious. You know about the diary and the heir of Slytherin and all that. You know what happened to me in my first year.”

“I mean, I know a bit. What does that have to do with me? I’m not the heir of Slytherin, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He reaches to pull her into him, but she resists, side-steps his outstretched hand. “Listen, all right? I poured my heart out into Tom’s diary. _Tom Riddle’s_ diary. You know who that is, don’t know you.”

“Yes.” His voice is low. His touches his arm, unconsciously, where the Dark Mark rests below his sleeve.

“I liked him. I had a _crush_ on him. I thought he was handsome, you understand?” There are tears in her eyes, and Ginny swipes them angrily away.

“You were only eleven. You couldn’t have known who he was.” 

“My age doesn’t matter, and that’s not true. I could feel that there was something wrong with him. As time went on, I knew on some level that he was a dark wizard, but I couldn’t stop using the diary. I couldn’t resist.”

“Oh, Ginny, that’s not…”

“I’m damaged inside. It’s why I feel so drawn to you, Draco, why I can’t … move past this.”

“I’m not Tom Riddle. I am not like that. I was never like that, but now, how can you still compare me to him?”

“I need to have a normal, healthy relationship. I need to be with someone for the _right_ reasons, for normal reasons.”

He finally gets his arms around her, draws her into him. “I think you’re wrong, Ginny.” He whispers into her hair. “I know what I feel.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she hears her voice crack and knows she’s going to have to cry. She feels a great, ugly sob welling inside of her, and she doesn’t want him to see it.

She pushes him away and leaves the room, desperate to disappear as her face contorts, the tears already burning in her eyes. She hurries down the staircase. Looking back, she can see his crushed expression.

* * *

_Draco_

He is lying on the bed and staring up at the waterstained ceiling. There’s an elaborate spider web in the corner by the window entangled with dead flies. It’s raining again, and the rain hits the ground hard in a steady, angry rush. Draco throws one arm over his eyes. He doesn’t know how to answer Ginny. If she even wants an answer. It sounded like she’d made up her mind. But hasn’t that been their whole relationship, since the beginning? Being drawn together, kissing and then fighting. Moving forward, and then backtracking. Over the past months, they’ve spent more time being angry with each other than talking or even kissing. Why, then, does it feel like a lead weight in his stomach? Like he can’t brush this off?

Not opening his eyes, he listens to the rain hammer down. From the depths of his mind, he brings up each of their meetings, beginning with the first time he kissed her in the dungeons. Her face was pale in the dimness, the smattering of freckles trailing over the bridge of her nose, sweeping up to her forehead. His lips barely brushed hers. Then, in the corridors, they had shouted at one another, and then she’d been in his arms again. Later, their walk by the lake, when he’d felt uncharacteristically awkward and cheerful until their conversation had unraveled. Because they had nothing in common. Because they couldn’t find any common ground.

But all that’s changed now. He’d switched sides, capitulated to Dumbledore, disobeyed his parents and put his family in a precarious position. He’d joined her. He’d taken her side. How could she tell him now that they have nothing holding them together when she’s the only friend he has left.

The rain pummels the dark window and Draco seethes in his dim prison. He imagines Ginny holed up with Potter all day long while he’s alone in this stinking old house. She told him she and Potter broke up, that the tosser actually broke up with _her_ , for her _safety_. Maybe she thinks Draco should have broken it off with her as well, for her safety. He’s the fucking Death Eater, after all.

Potter’s probably staring at her all day long, and eventually he’ll try to snog her again and she’ll let him because he’s such a fucking _saint_ , and she’s so fucking _damaged_ or whatever ridiculous notions she’s convinced herself of.

_____

His thoughts spiral into disquieted dreams, and he’s still thinking about her when he wakes up the next morning. The sun is steaming through the rain-streaked windows. He wonders if she’s thinking about him at all.

Draco crawls out of bed, changes out of the clothes he’d slept in, goes to the loo. He doesn’t remember waking up at night, but he feels like he didn’t get any rest. Like most days, the house is empty save the old house elf who brings him tea, and the werewolf who keeps watch over Draco. Some days, Moody, Kingsley, or his cousin Nymphadora replace Lupin, but the werewolf seems to be his primary jailer.

He didn’t know what it would be like, switching sides. Actually, he didn’t think at all. Standing on the Astronomy Tower with murder lodged on his uncooperative tongue, he simply reacted, let his emotions guide him without any real notion of what it would mean.

It could be worse. He could be dead, or locked in a cell, or tortured for information. But this...this stagnant existence...

Draco comes down to the kitchen for breakfast. He’s been eating in his room most days, but the isolation and the loneliness is beginning to draw him out more and more. Lupin is sitting at the table, the remnants of his breakfast next to him.

“Good morning, Draco,” he says. “Have a seat if you want some breakfast. Kreacher has made some exquisite breakfast rolls.”

Draco sits down without a word, and a moment later the old house elf is bustling around him with plates of food and a steaming pot of tea. He spoons sugar and milk into his tea cup and stirs it very slowly, the weight of another pointless day settling over him.

Lupin is reading the Prophet, sipping his tea. He looks rather peaky, even more bedraggled than usual. “Are you sick?” Draco asks, keeping his tone harsh.

Lupin looks up from his paper, apparently surprised to hear Draco speak. He shakes his head and his mouth twists into an unhappy smile. “The full moon’s a few days away.”

Draco jerks away, nearly upending his cup. “You’re not going to say here, are you?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve still got plenty of Wolfsbane Potion remaining in my stores. Luckily, Snape brewed a large batch of the stuff before he...” Lupin waves his hand dismissively to capture Snape’s betrayal.

Draco nods, settles back into his seat. He chews slowly. Lupin doesn’t leave the kitchen even though his cup is empty. The sunlight filters in from the kitchen windows in dusty columns, and outside he can hear birds and Muggle automobiles.

“I’ve got to do something,” he says finally to Lupin. “I can’t just sit in this house day in and day out.”

“It’s not for forever, Draco.”

“Yeah, but how long is it for?

Lupin looks him over. “We’ve talked about his, Draco.” When he doesn’t respond, the werewolf changes tactics. “Sirius was in this position too, you know.”

“Sirius Black?” Draco frowns.

“He escaped from Azkaban, you remember? He was wrongly accused of his crimes, but the Ministry didn’t pardon him, and so he had to hide. He hated it. He stayed here for months, but when Harry broke into the Department of Mysteries last year, he insisted on coming along to help.”

“My father was arrested that night,” Draco says tightly. That had been the beginning of the end for Draco. His father’s arrest had brought the Dark Lord’s ire on the family, had precipitated both his own Dark Mark and his nagging doubt at everything he’d been led to believe about the Dark Lord’s reign.

Lupin nodded. “I know that. I was there.”

“You were?” Draco doesn’t know why he’s surprised.

“Sirius was killed.”

Draco nods. He’d known that, of course. It was one shining victory among the failures of that night. His aunt’s victory. “So you’re saying I should stay here, or else I’ll be killed like Sirius Black.”

Lupin shrugs. “I’m saying you don’t have a choice, Draco. I’m saying Sirius might still be with us today if he hadn’t insisted on leaving this house.”

Draco frowns. “Don’t patronize me. He couldn’t have let you all go without him. Besides, any one of you could have died that night. That’s the risk you all took, wasn’t it?”

“But are you prepared to take the risk? Are you prepared to die, Draco?”

A cold dread snakes its way through his gut. “I mean, I don’t want to die obviously.”

“Then stay put for now.”

“Have you heard anything about my mother?” he asks.

“No, Draco. But I’m sure she’s safe. There has been a breakout in Azkaban, and we have reason to believe your father may have escaped.”

Draco opens his mouth, then closes it again. If his father is home, is that good news or bad? How has Lucius Malfoy reacted to his only son’s desertion? Does he even know? “I need to speak with my parents,” he says.

"No, Draco. Not yet. Be patient." 

Draco scowls and doesn't reply.

"It's not safe for you, and it's not safe for us. You know too much about the Order of the Phoenix now. You're a liability."

"I won't tell them anything, if that's what you're thinking. I said I'm not a Death Eater, and I meant it."

Lupin shakes his head again. "This is the safest place for you right now." He turns the page of the Prophet and grows absorbed in the article.

Draco feels his face flush with anger. The werewolf can't keep him here. He needs to make sure his mother is alright; it's not too much to ask. He's not an idiot. He can be careful.


	16. Worries and Madness

**Chapter 16: Worries and Madness**

He’s sitting at the rickety desk in his bedroom when he hears the wailings of Walburga Black float up the hallway. The werewolf hasn’t left the house, so it must be somebody new. He tries to focus on the parchment in front of him. It’s a letter to Mother, and though he hasn’t completely worked up the courage to leave the Black house and send it, it does help to write the letter. To get the words on the page. To _do_ something.

He doesn’t turn around when he hears footsteps on the stairs, or in the hallway, but his heartbeat quickens and he needs to set down his quill. His fingers are shaking. It’s not until the door to his bedroom creaks open that Draco finally allows his body to twist and look at the doorframe.

It’s not her.

It’s Granger.

Draco releases an angry huff of air. “What are you doing here?” he demands. “Get out.”

She frowns at him. Her eyes are cold and she has that look on her face that she usually wears at school: a look of superiority and utter disdain. “Ginny told me about the two of you,” she says haughtily and without preamble.

“Yeah, so I’ve heard. So you probably know there’s no “two of us” anymore. You made sure of that, didn’t you Granger?”

She seems taken aback. Like she hadn’t expected him to confirm Ginny’s story. Draco stands up and walks towards her. He wants to blame her entirely for Ginny’s last visit, but he knows she wouldn’t have said anything that she hadn’t already been thinking. She must have been questioning her earlier actions in this bedroom, the kissing, the...rest of it. It must have all looked like one giant mistake once her mind cleared.

He can’t blame Granger for helping Ginny sort out her feelings.

But he _can_ hate her for it. “Why don’t you just get out? You’ve already ruined this for me, so kindly fuck off.”

Again, she seems taken aback by the force of his reply. “Look, Malfoy, I’m only here because I’ve been thinking about my talk with Ginny. I know you’re bad for each other. You’re just...you’re a toxic human being. I think that much is obvious.”

He scoffs. “Like I said: You can fuck right off, Granger.”

“But she was so torn about the whole thing. I mean, in the beginning I think she was trying to actually defend your...relationship?” Her voice spikes at the end. She really does sound infuriating. “I guess maybe there’s more to you than we thought.” She looks uncomfortable. “The truth is, Malfoy, I would have never in a million years expected you to be here, with us, with the Order. I mean, it was always _My Father_ this, and _My Father_ that with you, wasn’t it? You were always waiting for your Dark Lord to return, to put us Muggleborns in our place.” 

Draco looks away.

“But here you are, Malfoy. Here you are, hiding out in the Order’s headquarters.” She throws up her hands. “There’s got to be something, then, that we got wrong about you.”

Now he feels uncomfortable. Swipes a hand through his hair. “So what do you want, Granger? You want me to sign an affidavit? You looking to get me thrown out?”

“No!” She shouts. “No...I just wanted to talk to you, Malfoy...to understand why Ginny...”

“She’s already made it clear that she wants to end it. She says she’s damaged. Did you tell her that?”

“No!”

From downstairs, Potter’s voice drifts upwards. “Hermione!”

“I’m coming!” She shouts back, but makes no move to leave.

“What do you want?” Draco asks again.

“You haven’t called me Mudblood yet,” she says, like she’s working something out. When he doesn’t answer, she continues. “I just want to know where you stand, Malfoy. Are you really on our side? Because you can’t think Muggleborns are inferior and that the Weasleys are blood traitors _and_ be on our side. It’s just not possible. And I know, I _know_ you’ve always believed vile things. You’ve always been a model Death Eater, haven’t you, even when you were just a child? Everything you say, or used to say, was right up Voldemort’s alley. So I just want to know, how can this same person, who’s said all those things, stand in front of me now and profess to be _on my side?_ How can that be?”

Draco can’t meet her eyes. His face feels too hot, and he tries to put the walls up in his mind like his aunt had taught him. Granger is so callously giving voice to all the slippery thoughts that consumed him in those last months as he worked on the cabinet, as the doubt and fear grew bigger and heavier inside his chest.

“I won’t say I never believed those things,” he says quietly. He rolls up his sleeve and turns his arm towards her, the Dark Mark pulsing dully on his pale arm. Granger flinches away, her eyes wide. “I won’t pretend that I didn’t willingly receive this. That I wasn’t proud to become the youngest Death Eater, to be honoured in this way.”

“Hermione!” Potter again, but she ignores him. She’s frowning, her eyes glued to the Mark, but she doesn’t speak. Only stares.

“It’s just...it’s one thing to talk about something, and it’s another thing to act on it, to see it, to _live_ it.” He looks up at her, and her eyes are wide and she’s hanging on every word. “I thought I wanted the Dark Lord to rise to power. It’s all I’ve every wanted. It’s what my father always talked about. But the truth is...the truth is the Dark Lord is a monster. And I don’t...” he looks at her helplessly. “I know it’s wrong. I knew it was wrong, even then, even before.” He throws up his arms. “I mean, Granger, you beat me in every class we ever shared! And maybe it’s all memorization and obsessive studying, and maybe you get a free ride because you’re Potter’s friend.” He ignores her weak protests. “The fact is, there are only so many ways I can justify it to myself. I’m not blind. I can see that some things I’ve always been taught just don’t line up with reality. But I could look past that, couldn’t I? I could look past it all until the Dark Lord actually returned.”

It’s all coming out in a rush now, and vaguely Draco wishes he were talking to Ginny instead. She’s the one who needs to hear this. “I don’t want to hurt anybody, and I don’t want to be in the line of spellfire.” He takes a breath. “I want to be on _her_ side. I always thought I was on the right side of things, but it’s plain to see that I wasn’t. Not for me. I’m not a killer, Granger. Think of me whatever you like, but I don’t get off on torturing people, on violence. I don’t want that. I want...” He looks at her very closely. “I want to be on her side. Will you tell her that? Please?”

She nods dumbly.

“Good.”

They can hear the old staircase creak with pounding footsteps, and Potter barges in around them. “What’s going on?” he demands. He eyes Draco warily. They haven’t said a word to each other in all this time, not since Potter vouched for him in McGonagall’s study. His eyes fall on Draco’s rolled-up sleeve, and he stares at the Dark Mark just as Granger did. “What’s going on?” he says again, his voice cold and full of suspicion. He can see Potter’s right hand closing around his wand.

“Nothing,” Draco sneers, yanking his sleeve back down. “We’re done here.” Let Potter think what he will.

“I’ll tell her,” Granger says as she turns out of the room.

He can hear Potter’s voice floating down the stairway: “Tell who?”

They disappear down the creaking staircase, but Draco feels too worked up to sit back down at the desk. He’s laid everything out for Granger, and it’s all true. He doesn’t regret turning away from the Dark Lord. At the same time, he can’t abandon his family. He can’t stay here forever, rotting away. That’s not what he signed up for. He’s already got a plan. If Ginny comes back to him, he’ll tell her, and if she doesn’t...he’ll send her an owl after he’s gone. An owl from the outside. And if they find him, and if they kill him, she’ll at least know that he didn’t betray her. At least not completely.

He turns to the window and something catches his eye. A flicker of movement.

Suddenly he is looking at McNair and Dolohov standing on the front lawn opposite, next to the ornamental bush. They peer directly at the house, their heads bent together.

Draco sucks in a breath, but when they don’t move, he knows they can’t see it. They begin to walk down the road, past the Muggle automobiles, heading east. Then, they double-back and head west, passing the house.

“Shit,” Draco whispers.

He bursts out of his bedroom and runs down the stairs, taking two at a time. Potter, Granger, and Weasley are all sitting on a sagging velvet sofa in the living room. He runs past them and crashes through the kitchen doors.

Draco skids to a halt, his words dying on his lips.

Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks spring apart as if they’d been shocked. Draco blinks, the image of the werewolf snogging his cousin implanted on his eyelids.

Lupin looks mortified, but the young metamorphmagus strides up to him as if nothing of note had occurred. “Wotcher, young Malfoy. Don’t think I’ve had the chance to properly introduce myself. Glad to see our batty family line lose another wizard to the Light, yeah?” She nudges him and grins.

“Right,” he stutters. “Nymphadora-”

“Call me Tonks,” she interrupts.

There’s a blare of a car horn outside, and Draco’s urgency rekindles. “Death Eaters,” he says frantically. “Just outside the house. I saw them through my window upstairs, and I don’t think it’s the first time they’ve been here.”

Lupin frowns, embarrassment fading. Behind them, the kitchen door bursts open and Potter and his cronies burst inside. “What’s going on now, Malfoy?” Potter demands.

Lupin rushes to the window and peers out. “You know them? That one’s McNair if I’m not mistaken.”

“Yeah, and that’s Dolohov.”

“They can’t see the house.”

“No,” Draco confirms.

“They know something though,” says Weasley, trying to squeeze between Lupin, his cousin, and Potter to get a closer look at the window. Granger is the only one hanging back, looking fidgety.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she huffs. “Why wouldn’t Snape be with them? He’s a Secondary Secret Keeper now. He’d be able to show them where the house is.”

Nobody has an answer, so they peer anxiously at the two Death Eaters for several more minutes. Eventually, the two men vanish with an audible crack. The street is silent and deserted once more.

* * *

Seeing the Dolohov and McNair so close has shaken Draco’s resolve, so he’s put his letter to his mother away for another day. It’s no good though. He tosses and turns in his bed, thinking of his mother writhing on the floor. The Dark Lord has never used _Crucio_ on her in Draco’s presence, has never paid her much mind at all, but all that could have changed since his desertion. It changed quickly enough for his father, and for himself.

Draco closes his eyes and tries to sleep, but in his mind, he is at the Manor.

Summer. He was in the drawing room. It was the first time he’d seen the Dark Lord properly, up close. His skin was grey, and his face was not a human face. There was no way to convey the disgust and the horror Draco had felt upon seeing the face of this man who was meant to be the greatest wizard of all time.

And then his aunt had been called up from the ranks. They were greatly reduced in number, with his father and others in Azkaban after the debacle at the Department of Mysteries.

He praised her at first, for not getting caught, for killing Sirius Black. His aunt had always been eccentric, and all those years in Azkaban had really hollowed her out, driven her to closer to madness. But she never looked madder than when stood in front of the Dark Lord. Her expression was exalted at his praise. When the Dark Lord drew out his wand, it might have been to reward her, but instead he’d hissed “Crucio!”

And she’d writhed on the floor. Beside him, his mother’s hand gripped his shoulder. He could feel her long fingernails digging into his skin. When he’d looked up at her face, he’d seen sheer terror in her eyes.

It only lasted a moment, and afterwards his aunt’s face was no less exalted. She’d sat up on her haunches, breathing heavily. “Thank you. I deserved that,” she whispered. “We could have done better, My Lord.”

“I am glad you see things my way, dear Bellatrix,” he’d said. His voice was cold and slippery.

Draco opens his eyes. It wasn’t a dream. That nightmarish summer lives in his mind at all times, hidden away, and when he can’t sleep, it slithers out to flood his mind with helpless fear. And his mother is still there, at the Manor, with the Dark Lord. And his father? If he’s free, then he’d only spent a sliver of the time in Azkaban that his aunt had. But there is no way to know if he would have that same desperate, mad air about him now. There is no way to know if they are safe.


	17. Jailbreak

**Chapter 17: Jailbreak**

_Draco_ **  
**

He has finished both letters and rolled them up. They are sitting on the old, scratched-up wooden desk.

He wonders, for the thousandth time, what his parents think of him. He wonders what Snape has told them. He feels pulled toward home, toward his comfortable room and his familiar life. A haze of homesickness has settled on his thoughts. But that life is gone. His home has been taken over, and his comfortable life, his room and his manor and the familiar routines of day-to-day life, have been hijacked by Death Eaters. Even if he were to find a place at the Manor, he cannot go back to his old life.

“It’s gone,” he whispers to himself.

He walks around the room and places his few positions into his school trunk, which McGonagall had brought over from the Slytherin dormitory when he was first smuggled out to Grimmauld Place. As he packs, Draco wonders about Pansy, or Crabbe and Goyle. If he wrote to them, would they help him? Would they be on his side? But he can’t be sure.

Ginny Weasley is probably the only person he can trust, but she hasn’t been back since that day she wrapped her freckled arms around his neck, and then pushed him away.

Maybe Granger didn’t say anything to her. Or maybe she did, and Ginny decided it wasn’t enough. She was too _damaged_. He was too _dark_.

His packing done, Draco sits down on the bed, the mattress sagging beneath him. He sits for a minute, tapping his fingers against his thigh, and then jerks back up. Continues pacing around the room, his eye on the window, waiting for nightfall.

Maybe he’s going mad from the boredom, the restlessness. The werewolf has been hiding out in his room all week. The moon is waxing, and though he’s assured Draco that the potion will keep him docile, he hasn’t been around at breakfast. There’s only the ancient house-elf, and it doesn’t seem inclined to speak with him either.

Draco has started talking to himself, in his mind, and sometimes even out loud. Mostly mutterings, rationalizations. Accusing himself on behalf of others, then defending his actions. Eventually, his inner-voice peters off, and anxiety and fear and shame creep up on him in the dusty silence. At night, Snape’s Killing Curse blazes through the blackness behind his eyelids, jolting him awake.

Draco sighs. It’s twilight. Fluid blue shadows stretch down the block. The occasional Muggle walks past.

A few more hours.

He walks over to the desk and picks up his letters.

One to Narcissa Malfoy.

The other to Ginny Weasley.

One asking to meet, so he can see with his own eyes that Mother is alive and well, and can explain in his own words why he’d abandoned her.

One for Ginny with his justification: he hasn’t deserted her. Maybe they can find each other again someday if they are both alive at the end of all this.

Eyes on the window, Draco watches the darkness slowly consume the empty street below. The werewolf is locked away in his room, weakened by his potion. Draco takes out his wand. It takes a few attempts to perform a Shrinking Charm on his trunk. Finally, he wrangles it down to a manageable size and stuffs it into the deep pockets of his traveling cloak. He runs a hand through his hair and takes a deep breath.

It's past midnight when he pads quietly down the stairs. The house is dark, silent as death itself. He passes Walburga’s painting, but even she remains quiet. Perhaps she holds no grudge against the pureblood Malfoy heir.

Draco presses on the ancient door handle, and he walks quickly into the damp, dark evening. His cloak swishes behind him. His trunk bangs against his leg. Draco takes one last look at the Black House, and he Disapparates.

\------------

_Ginny_

Ginny sits up in bed, her blankets rustling around her. She blinks into the darkness. Something woke her. What was it? She looks to the left where Hermione’s adjacent cot used to stand, but remembers the cot is gone. Hermione moved downstairs when Bill and Fleur arrived, and her dad expanded the first level of the Burrow to accommodate the wedding party.

The corner where Hermione used to sleep has a pile of discarded robes and Quidditch magazines. Nothing but blue, bulbous shadows in the darkness. She feels around for her wand and casts _Lumos_. Her room is empty. The cicadas have quieted down, and there’s only the rustle of wind outside, and the occasional scurry of a gnome or a small animal in the garden below.

Ginny’s about to extinguish her wand, burrow back into her blankets, when something on her desk catches her eye. It’s a small, circular object, and it’s vibrating slightly, trembling against the wooden desk. “Draco,” Ginny whispers, realizing what the object must be. He’s left Grimmauld Place.

She gets out of bed and pulls some robes off the floor, jerking them over her pyjamas. She doesn’t turn on her lights in case someone gets suspicious. She doesn’t want anyone coming to investigate, telling her to wait in the safety of her room while they all go barreling out into world. The only person who knows about the tracking charm is Hermione, but she doesn’t want to tell her either. Ginny didn’t think they’d need to track him at all. She didn’t think he would leave. But Hermione saw this coming. Hermione insisted that he couldn’t be trusted. And she was right, wasn’t she?

Ginny grabs the small, circular orb off the table. She can see now that it’s pulsing with a steady glow as it vibrates faster in her closed fist, the pale light leaking out between her fingers. She grips her wand, pulls her robes tighter over her pyjamas, and Disapparates, letting the pulsing orb draw her to him.

* * *

She appears in an empty street, the pavement dark and glistening with recent rain. There are shops on either side of her, all dark and shuttered. There isn’t a witch or wizard in sight, only a few owls hooting softly from the rooftops.

It takes several beats for Ginny to realize she is in Diagon Alley. She’d never seen it like this before: empty and dark, closed up for the night. The lampposts are lit, but the thin, fluttery light they give has turned the streets to greyscale. The tracking orb is pulsing insistently in her hand. She peers ahead, but nobody is there.

Then, she hears the shuffle of footsteps. Behind her. She whirls around to see a cloak vanish into an alleyway. Ginny runs after it. She doesn’t know if it’s him. It could be a Death Eater. She grips her wand with a hex ready on her lips. Maybe she’s being foolish – she could be killed. Worse, she could be captured to lure Harry into a deadly trap.

_Stupid,_ Ginny thinks, pounding down the dark alleyway. In the middle of the night. Following a skittish shadow.

The figure turns a corner. Ginny skids to a stop, catching him darting behind a wall.

He whirls around, his wand in a white-knuckle grip, his open-wide grey eyes full of terror. His chest rises and falls. He gets a good look at her face, and he lowers the wand. “Ginny?”

She lowers her own wand, relieved. It’s not a Death Eater. At least, not a dangerous one. “What are you doing here? Why did you leave?”

“What are you doing here?” he echoes, the terror leaving his face, replaced by confusion. “How did you find me?”

They are both catching their breaths, their questions breathy in the grimy alleyway. Draco’s eyes are darting back and forth. He still looks nervous. He casts a _muffiato_ and makes sure nobody has followed her.

Ginny opens her hand to reveal the vibrating orb.

“Is that a Sneakoscope?” he asks.

“It used to be, actually. Hermione charmed it to act like a trace, to track you if you left Grimmauld Place.”

He looks skeptical. “She just charmed a Sneakoscope to keep tabs on me? Come on, you expect me to believe that?”

“Hermione’s brilliant!” Ginny shoves the device into the pocket of her robes. “You don’t know half of what she can do.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m just saying it’s not likely. That’s complicated magic, even for Potter’s pet Mud – Muggleborn witch.”

Ginny knows what he was going to say. “She’s not his pet,” she huffs.

“No, that’d be you, would it?”

“Just shut it, Malfoy.”

They’re both angry now, in each others’ faces, but it feels good and familiar. Damn. Ginny takes a step back. “She didn’t make it from scratch. She used the Ministry’s trace on you. Since you’re still underage. She somehow tapped it into, adjusted it. Instead of going off when you do magic in front of Muggles, it goes off when you set foot outside of Grimmauld Place.”

Draco takes her cue and backs away as well, hitting the wall behind him. "Oh," is all he says. He's wearing a thick travelling cloak. 

“She took some of you hair last time she saw you, with Harry. That’s why she came upstairs.”

He looks like he’s trying to remember. He finds her eyes. “Did she talk to you, then? Did Granger tell you...”

Ginny nods.

At first, all they could talk about were the Death Eaters roaming around Grimmauld Place. Hermione was obsessed with the fact that they couldn't see it, when surely Snape would have told them the location. Finally, when Harry and Ron had gone down to dinner, she kept Ginny aside and they talked about Draco. She was confused by him. She relayed his message, and then she'd shrugged.

"He cares about you, as improbable as that seems," she'd said to Ginny.

"But you still don't trust him?"

"I'm still working on the tracker, if that's what you mean." She'd been sure he would try to slip away. Ginny hated that she'd been right.

Now, in the empty alleyway, Ginny grips the tracker inside her pocket. She meets Draco's eyes again. "She told me what you said."

Draco holds her gaze. "But you didn't come back?"

“I was going to,” she whispers, taken aback at his accusatory tone. “I was just taking some time to think things over...” Ginny frowns. She shouldn't be the one being interrogated. “It doesn’t matter now, though. Does it? You’ve changed your mind? Are you going back?”

“Going back?” he said.

“Back to them? Back to Voldemort?”

* * *

_Draco_

“No!” The name drives a spike of fear through chest. Merlin, he hates how she says it so causally, so insolently. She hasn’t yet been close enough to the horror of it all. Her fear is still theoretical. He narrows his eyes. “Of course I’m not going back,” he tells her. “Do you think I would? After everything that’s happened.”

Ginny just looks at him with equal measure pity and mistrust. He hates that look. “Why did you leave then? They told you not to go. You could be a liability to the Order now. They trusted you and you’ve gone and run away. What am I supposed to think, Draco?”

“Hah, that’s a laugh! Nobody trusts me worth a damn – you should know that, Weasley.” He feels anger in his fingertips, flaring. “They only pumped me for information, didn’t they?”

“They protected you!”

“Your lot locked me up and wouldn’t let me leave! I was a prisoner, wasn’t I? Couldn’t even owl my own parents.”

“We trusted you!” she’s shouting now, her voice high and desperate. “After what you did! After you let Death Eaters into Hogwarts! After Dumbledore DIED!”

Draco swallows back his retort, the anger leaching out of him. She’s right. He’d been a right bastard, and they still took him in, gave him some security. “Stop it, Ginny.” He whispers. “Stop shouting at me. We’re on the same side.”

“Are we?”

“Yes!” He takes her hands, and they’re cold. He squeezes them. “I’m on your side. I told Granger to tell you that, and I meant it. I’m on _your_ side. For good.”

She looks at him hard, her brown eyes locking onto this. “Ok. So what are you doing, then? Why did you leave?”

“I told you. The werewolf wouldn’t let me contact my parents. He wouldn’t even let me send an owl.”

“It’s not safe,” she says obstinately.

Draco needs her to understand. “I have to see my parents. I need to explain everything, and to see if they’re alright. I need to make sure my mother is safe, that she hasn’t been punished for what I’ve done. My father...I want to know...if he still loves me, if he’d forgive me.”

Ginny’s hard gaze softens a bit. “But Draco, maybe if you waited a bit longer. Another week...”

“I’ve got to meet with Mother. They won’t let me send an owl or use the Floo, or anything. I just need to see that she’s all right.”

Ginny takes a shuddering breath. “Where are you going, then, if not back to Malfoy Manor?”

He doesn't know exactly, but he won't tell her that. "I thought I’d start here and find an inn. When the owl post opens tomorrow morning, I’ll send my letters.”

“Your letters?”

He pulls them out of his cloak. “I guess I only need to send one of them now.” He hands her a scroll. “This one was supposed to be for you. So you wouldn’t worry, you know, that I’ve betrayed you all.” He smirks at her, and she takes the scroll.

She holds it in her hand like she might read it in front of him, but instead she stuffs it into her robes. “You can’t stay in Diagon Alley. It’s too central, too crowded. Someone will see you.”

Draco fidgets with the clasps on his cloak. “Yeah, I guess I didn’t think about that.”

Ginny pulls at her hair, looking tense. “What about the Burrow. I can take you there for now.” She spots his confused look. “It’s what we call my house. The Burrow.”

“Are you serious? Merlin, it sounds like some kind of animal nest. You’re just making fun of yourselves now, are you?”

She slaps him hard on the arm, and he grins. But then his grin falters. “Anyway, I can’t go to your home, not with your family there. They’ll just send me right back where I came from, won’t they.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“I need some time, Ginny. I don't mind going back into hiding, but I just need a few days to contact my parents.”

She keeps eyeing him with that look, half-skeptical, half-determined. “Are you sure it’s safe? What if they just drag you home against your will? Or worse?”

Draco closes his eyes. “My mother wouldn’t do that. I have to trust her, don’t I? She’s my mother.”

Ginny nods absently, but she looks wholly uncertain. “Alright, how about this. I know an inn. It’s in Wales where my cousin Doxy lives. It’s run by this old wizard, and it’s completely out of the way of everything. It’s just one of these pubs, you know, at the edge of a Muggle village. We stayed there once a few years ago when we were visiting Doxy’s family, on our way to Egypt.”

“Egypt?”

“Never mind. There are a few Wizarding families nearby, but mostly it’s just Muggles, so you’ll have an easier time staying invisible.”

“Ok.”

“Yeah?”

He smiles. “Yeah. Take me there.”

She nods once, then loops her arm into his. “I don’t know if I’m ready to try side-along apparation. I’ve only just learned how to Apparate, and I’m not that good yet. I only ended up here as easily as I did because the tracking charm pulled me.”

Draco tightens the hold on her arm and pulls her into him. “Just think of us as one person,” he says. Her body is warm against him, her hair tickling his chin.

“I don’t want to splinch you,” she whispers.

Draco closes his eyes and sighs dramatically. “Just do it, Weasley, before I lose my nerve.”

They Disapparate with an audible crack, away from the quiet alleyway in the heart of Wizarding London.


	18. The Room with the Flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the Kudos and the continued support! Hope you enjoy the next chapter.

**Chapter 18: The Room with Flowers**

_Ginny_

The room at the inn is smaller even than the room at Grimmauld Place. The bed is covered with a yellow bedspread worn thin with many washes. There is a wooden nightstand with a vase of wild daffodils, and four paintings, one on each wall, all of floral themes.

Ginny grimaces as they step inside, the floor creaking. It’s quite tacky and rundown, but Draco doesn’t say anything. He pulls his trunk out of his pocket and places it on the floor. It grows back to its original size with a thump.

“I’ll contact my mother tomorrow morning as soon as I can find owl-post someplace in town.”

“Ok.” There must be something in her expression that reflects her uncertainty, her reluctance to leave him here. The tracking charm is tied to Grimmauld place; it won’t work again.

“I’ll stay in touch,” he promises. “I won’t disappear on you.” When she doesn’t respond, he rolls his eyes. “I won’t betray the Order.”

“What if you don’t find an owl? It’s a Muggle village for the most part, and I don’t think you should go walking around in broad daylight in those robes, advertising your presence. You never know who’s watching.”

His jaw is tight and he’s looking down at the floor. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Isn’t that the point of this place? You’re just determined to keep me locked away in some dark room, aren’t you?”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Ginny tries to keep her tone light. She steps closer, nudges him gently on the arm. “You know I’m right. You can’t take foolish risks.”

He sighs. Then, he nods. Draco removes the other scroll and hands it to Ginny. He finds her eyes as she takes the scroll from him. “I can trust you, yeah? You’ll send this to my mum? You won’t just hand it over to the Order as soon as you Apparate out of here?”

“I’ll send it as soon as I get back. I’ll use Errol, our own owl. He’s old, but he’s reliable.” She tucks the scroll away into the pockets of her cloak, next to the other scroll meant for her. 

It’s time to leave, to Apparate back to her bedroom before anyone misses her. But Ginny continues to stand in the same spot, a few feet away from him, next to the bed with the pale, worn-out bedspread. In the sudden silence, her breathing seems too loud. In and out, noisy inhales and exhales. She makes no move to leave, and he’s watching her carefully. Her eyes flicker over his face, to his pale lips, to his questioning gaze.

“So Granger spoke to you?” he finally asks, breaking the silence. “And you were going to come back? To see me?” Draco’s stare is intense. Like he’s asking her a different question _: Do you want to be with me now? Have you changed your mind?_

Ginny’s heart begins to pound. “Hermione told me what you said. Not that I didn’t know it before. You’ve already said it to me, in bits and pieces. I could see you figuring it all out when we were back at school.” 

“So,” he says. “Do you still...I mean...?”

“Hermione apologized to me. She said maybe she’d been wrong about you.”

Draco looks away, his reflection pale on the dark window. “So that’s why you’ve changed your mind? Because of Granger?”

Ginny frowns. “I came here because of the charm.”

“So you haven’t changed your mind?”

“Merlin, Draco. Why does this have to be so complicated?” Ginny closes her eyes.

“You’re the one making it complicated,” he begins to say, but Ginny closes the space between them and stumbles into him, finding his mouth, kissing him hotly.

Draco goes rigid for a moment. “Are we not broken up anymore?” he asks against her lips.

“No,” she breathes. “Not anymore. Not right now.”

His arm snakes around her waist, and he grips her against him, kissing her deeply and slowly. As if they’ve got all the time in the world. And maybe they do. There is nobody to burst in on them, no Professor Lupin or her parents in the downstairs kitchen. Nobody to worry being silent about. The old wizard minding the pub downstairs probably wouldn’t hear them if they shouted from the rafters.

Draco’s body is firm against hers. She can feel him through her thin purple pyjamas.

He backs her against the wall, pressing himself against her. Over his shoulder, she can see a painting of a yellow garden spout filled with wildflowers on the opposite wall. "Ah..." Ginny sighs as his hand reaches beneath the hem of her pyjamas to slide against her bare skin, and her eyes flutter closed. She focuses on the feeling of his warm mouth on hers, his tongue on hers, their gasps mingling.

Her own hands are sliding too, jerking his shirt out of his trousers, pulling at the buttons. Ginny hums, feeling his fingers on her skin as they move higher beneath her shirt to ghost across her stomach, brush the underside of her breast. His hand grazes across her ribs, his fingers splaying wide on her bare back as he draws her even closer.

Then, he stops. His chest rises and falls against hers. She listens to their breaths, to her pounding heart, her whole body erupted in goose bumps.

“Wait,” he says. “Let’s not rush into this.” 

Ginny makes an impatient noise. “Why not? What are you waiting for?”

He pulls away and looks down into her eyes. His brow is furrowed, his own eyes shining, with two bright spots flaring on his cheeks. His fine hair has fallen into his eyes, but suddenly self-conscious, Ginny doesn't brush it away.

“I can’t do this if I don’t know what you want,” he says.

“I think that should be rather obvious.” Her heart is beating so fast, her whole body too hot. Plunging ahead, she reaches for his waistband, and her fingers dip below the hem of his trousers But he stills her hands with his own. He pushes away from the wall, away from her.

“No, actually. It’s not obvious.”

Ginny feels her whole face flush, her stomach swooping uncomfortably. Could he be rejecting her? She crosses her arms across her chest, questioning his signals, his words. He'd said he loved her, hadn’t he? It was more than a week ago, and maybe it didn’t mean much. Fred and George were always talking about the wild shit they’ve told girls to get a hand up their skirts. Maybe she misread him. She basically ordered him to say it. _Tell me you love me_. “I thought you wanted this,” she finally says.

Draco’s expression is hard to read, but his face is still flushed. He takes one step towards her, but doesn’t touch her again. “Last time I saw you, you said it was over between us.”

“Yes, but that was after...and then I talked with Hermione...” Her voice drifts off.

Draco’s eyes narrow. “I see. So if Granger approves, you’re willing to lower yourself to my level?”

Ginny scoffs. “Excuse me? You’re a _Malfoy_. If anyone’s lowering themselves...”

“I just mean,” he cuts her off, “that you’re willing to be with me, dark wizard that I am?”

Ginny grimaces. “It’s something I’m struggling with, Draco, I won’t lie. But you’re not a dark wizard. Hermione says...”

“Yeah, I got it. Everything we’ve been through together, that doesn’t matter. Lowering my wand, going against the Dark Lord, putting my parents in danger – that doesn’t matter. But as long as Granger doesn’t think I’m slime, you’re willing to give me the time of day again?”

* * *

_Draco_

Draco doesn’t know where the anger is coming from, when a moment ago he was hot all over. But before that, there was nothing but cold fear and uncertainty.

His trousers are too tight, and his face is too warm, and some urgent part of him wants to undress her right now. He wants to jerk down her purple pyjama bottoms. He shouldn’t be bringing up reasons to push her away, reminding her why she wanted to end things in the not-so-distant past. But he can’t help it. He doesn’t want this thing between them to spiral out of control. He doesn’t want her to second-guess things once it's done, to regret letting him touch her.

She’s already tried to end it, to push him away. How many times has she told him that she wanted to do the right thing? The right thing that does _not_ include Draco Mafoy and his dubious morals. She’s eager enough to kiss him now, but that’s just a burst of hormones. What happens when Granger changes her mind and withdraws her support? What happens when Potter wants to get back together? What happens when Ginny takes a good look at him, at the Dark Mark on his arm, and remembers what kind of choices he’s made?

The moonlight shifts, and the small room grows dark as the light wavers in the shadows. “I don’t want to do this right now,” Draco says, his voice soft. “Not like this.”

“Fine,” she whispers. “I’ll go then.” The anger in her voice is ridged with hurt.

"I just don’t want to be angry when we...”

“Yeah, got it. I said I was leaving.”

Draco looks away from her, out the window, his heart still beating fast. “But you’ll come back?”

She nods. “And I’ll send your owl. I’ll send it right away.”

He takes her hand and squeezes it. When he lets go, she grips her wand and disappears with a crack.

After she’s gone, Draco shrugs off the travelling cloak and sits heavily on the little bed. He closes his eyes and wonders if he’s just the biggest idiot to ever walk the earth.

***

He wakes up the next morning disoriented, his room smelling sickly-sweet from the blooming flowers on his nightstand. There’s a communal toilet in the hallway. Draco pads down the threadbare rug, trying not to touch anything any more than he has to. It was bad enough staying in the Black’s decrepit home. If his mother knew he was staying in a cheap room above a pub, she’d really be disgusted.

It’s a cloudy day in Wales. Conversations from the pub below drift up through the floorboards, but Draco stays where he is until mid-afternoon, pacing and worrying, oscillating between frustration and fear.

He finally decides to risk heading down for some food when an owl knocks against the window, startling him with the sudden _thump_. Draco opens the latch, and a ruffled old thing collapses on the rug. It picks itself up, a few grey feather floating in the air, and perches on the windowsill. Ginny wasn’t joking about the owl being old. He takes the scroll from its leg and scans it hungrily.

_Today at 4. There’s a tea house up the road._

He reads it again. Weeks and weeks with no contact from his parents, and suddenly a meeting with his mother is mere hours away. He’d been desperate to speak with her, but now his mouth is dry. What will she think of him? Will she blame him for deserting her, for bringing the wrath of the Dark Lord even more soundly on the Malfoy name?

Worse, what if the werewolf has been right all along, and he’s foolishly setting up a trap for himself and for the Order. Anyone could have intercepted his letter.

Draco reads the note again. His eyes narrow-in on Ginny’s messy handwriting, the ink bleeding into the parchment. He needs to see his mother. That’s all there is to it, risks be damned. Draco turns over the parchment and writes: _I’ll be there._ The old owl fumbles back out the window, swooping lopsidedly before soaring higher into the sky. He watches it fly until it’s nothing but a speck against the clouds.

Once the owl’s gone, there’s nothing to do but wait. He goes down to the pub and picks at an order of fish and chips swimming in grease. He asks for a tumbler of Firewhisky. The barkeep eyes him with a frown. “You sure a young lad like you ought to be drinking hard liquor in the afternoon?”

Draco scowls and pushes another handful of Galleons towards him.

The old man shakes his head, but produces the Firewhisky. It’s some cheap variety, and it burns like kerosene down his throat, but Draco drinks it down and orders another. He doesn’t want to be drunk when he finally sees his mother, but he needs something to dampen the wild beating of his heart.

He wiles away the next few hours upstairs in his small room. He runs over the _what-ifs_ in his mind. What if his mother is suffering or visibly hurt? What if she’s furious with him, meeting only to tell him what a failure and disappointment he is? What if it _is_ a trap, and he finds himself under attack? He practices a few hexes just in case, flicking his wand back and forth. He doesn’t hear the crack of Apparition until Ginny materializes in front of him, next to the flower vase.

“Hey!” she cries as a stinging hex fizzles against the opposite wall.

“Ginny!” He says at the same time. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to be nearby for the meeting.”

Draco frowns, lowering his wand. He begins to protest, but Ginny cuts him off. “I won’t listen in. I won’t even enter the tea shop. But if something does go wrong, I want to be there. You’ll need at least one person to back you up, or to alert the Order in a worst-case scenario.”

Draco sighs. “She’s my mother, Ginny. I know you think we’re all evil, the Malfoys, but she wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Weren’t you the one practicing hexes just now?” Draco sniffs noncommittally, and the girl rolls her eyes at him. “I’m not saying she’ll hurt you,” she persists, “I just don’t want you to be alone if anything goes wrong.”

Draco gives in. He's glad she came, if he's being honest. “Have they noticed I’ve gone, then?” he asks, changing the subject.

Ginny begins to pace, looking from one floral frame to the next with a frown. “’Course they’ve noticed. Remus sounded the alarm this morning. Kreacher’s the one who alerted him. Apparently, the elf was worried you’d starve to death without your breakfast and upturned the whole house looking for you.”

“Figures,” Draco mutters. House elves: couldn’t live without them, but gods were they ever irritating. “So what now? Have you told them anything?”

“I haven’t said a thing.” The redhead looks away. “I mean, I’ve told Hermione.”

“Wait – you told her where I am?”

“She knows about the charm. She’s the one who figured out the magic, remember? She asked me right away, as soon as we heard mum and dad talking to Remus through the fireplace. They questioned us, but nobody else knows anything, and Hermione won’t talk until I give her the go-ahead. I’m thinking we’ll go back to the Burrow once you’ve met with your mum, and then you can explain yourself and go back into hiding at Grimmauld place with your tail between your legs.”

Draco frowns. “Sounds awful.”

Ginny shrugs. “Anyway, it caused a lot of commotion this morning. I wanted to come earlier, but I couldn’t get away without being noticed. I’ve told my parents that I’m not feeling well, so they think I’m taking a nap up in my room.”

“You don’t think your mother will be up to check on you?”

“They’re all busy with the wedding preparations. Mum and Fleur’s got everyone setting up the tables and putting up streamers and the like. She’s been cooking for three days straight, so I don’t think she’ll bother checking on me. In any case, I did some charm-work on my bed to throw her off. She’ll have to come real close to notice it’s just a glamoured garden gnome.”

Draco grins. “Ah, the old gnome in the bed trick.” 

She grins back, and Draco has an urge to kiss her. But then, he doesn’t want to complicate things further right now. There’s less than an hour before his mother’s meant to meet him in a Muggle tea house in Wales. This isn’t the time for snogging, especially after the way things ended last night.

“Can I see her reply?” he asks instead.

“Of course. I brought it for you.” Ginny takes out a roll of parchment. His mother’s graceful, looping handwriting is instantly recognizable.

_Dearest son,_

_Your letter has eased my worry about your well-being. I am glad to hear you are alive and well. There is little I can say in a letter, for we never know whose hands it might fall into. We must meet in person. Tell me the time and place, and I will find my way to you. Stay safe, Draco._

_Love,_

_Mother_

Ginny is watching his face when he puts the letter down. “I decided to write her back on your behalf. The Muggle tea shop is safer somehow, don’t you think? If there are wands drawn or a commotion, someone will alert the Ministry because of the Statute of Secrecy.”

“My mother’s never been to a Muggle tea shop,” he says with a grimace. “Actually, neither have I. And I won’t tell you again to stop worrying about an attack. There won’t _be_ any attack, alright, Weasley?”

Ginny just grins again, and approaches him, takes his hand slowly. “So you call me Weasley when you’re in a snit? And Ginny when you’re glad to see me? Is that how it works?”

Draco didn’t even notice what he’d called her. He feels his face heat up, but only shrugs. The feel of her hand in his is distracting. He pulls her closer into him, and he inhales the clean scent of her hair.

Ginny smiles against his shoulder. “Besides, there aren’t any Wizarding tea shops here, and I didn’t think you could travel very far.”

“I can Apparate, you know,” he mutters into her hair.

“Well la-di-da, Mr. Malfoy.” She turns her freckled face up towards his, and he takes the opportunity to kiss her lightly on the lips. Maybe just a light bit of snogging.

Ginny kisses him back, softly, and then pulls away and drops his hand. “We should get going,” she says. “We’ll get there early. I won’t walk with you in case someone sees us.”

He takes a deep breath and nods. The warmth of the Firewhisky has seeped away over the last few hours. His heart is beating erratically again, and there’s a headache beginning to pulse at his temples. “Let’s go,” he says, and he leads the way out of the small room.

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been up at fanficiton.net for a while, and I've recently decided to transfer it here as well. More to come soon. Thank you for reading! Please review! I appreciate even the smallest comments!


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